Choose the correct indirect (reported) speech for: She said, “I was cooking dinner.”

Explanation

When the direct speech is in the past continuous tense, such as ‘was cooking,’ it generally backshifts to the past perfect continuous tense in indirect speech, becoming ‘had been cooking.’ This pattern mirrors how simple past backshifts to past perfect, applying the same one-step-further-back principle to the continuous form of the verb. Explore more English MCQs on mcqstutor to keep practicing.