Choose the correct indirect narration of the following statement from the given alternatives: The judge said to the prisoner, "What were you doing in the garage at 10:30 pm on Monday when the incident took place?"
The judge asked the prisoner what he had been doing in the garage at 10:30 pm on Monday when the incident had taken place.
We must report the judge's wh-question about what the prisoner was doing in the garage at 10:30 pm on Monday.
The question is reported with 'asked' and statement word order, and the tenses backshift one step into the past.
The past continuous 'were you doing' backshifts to the past perfect continuous 'had been doing', giving 'what he had been doing'.
The subordinate past simple 'the incident took place' backshifts to the past perfect 'the incident had taken place'.
Option one leaves the first verb as 'was doing', option two fails to backshift 'took place', and option four drops the pronoun 'he'.
Option three carries out both backshifts and keeps 'he', so the correct indirect narration is The judge asked the prisoner what he had been doing in the garage at 10:30 pm on Monday when the incident had taken place.
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