Select the option that expresses the following sentence in reported (or indirect) speech.
They said, “We will come home this evening.”

Correct option is B

Direct Speech- it means reporting the message of the speaker in the exact words as spoken by him.
Indirect Speech- It is speech which tells you what someone said, but does not use the person's actual word.
· Given sentence is a direct speech.
· The correct option to express the sentence "They said, 'We will come home this evening.'" in reported (or indirect) speech is option (b) "They said that they would come home that evening."
· Here's why option (b) is the correct transformation from direct to indirect speech:
· Modal Verb Change: The modal verb "will" in direct speech typically changes to "would" in indirect speech to reflect a backshift in tense, appropriate when the reporting verb is in the past tense ("said").
· Temporal and Pronoun Adjustments: The first-person plural pronoun "we" changes to "they" in reported speech to match the subject being referred to from the perspective of the speaker reporting the words. The time reference "this evening" is adjusted to "that evening" to align the time reference with the past context of the reporting verb.
· Simplicity and Directness: The sentence structure in option (b) maintains the simplicity and directness of the original statement without altering the continuous aspect or changing the tense unnecessarily.