Reported Speech WH Questions Exercises

WH questions (what, where, when, why, who, how) in reported speech keep the question word but change to statement word order — subject comes before the verb. "Where do you live?" becomes "He asked where I lived." Notice three changes: no inversion, no helper verb "do," and the verb backshifts to past simple. The question word acts as the connector between the reporting clause and the reported clause.

The reporting verb is usually asked (not "said") because the original sentence was a question. Never add "if" or "whether" with WH questions — the question word itself serves as the connector, making "if" unnecessary and grammatically incorrect. "What are you doing?" becomes "She asked what I was doing," never "She asked if what I was doing." All tenses backshift normally: present simple becomes past simple, present continuous becomes past continuous, past simple becomes past perfect, and so on. Pronouns change as always. "How much does it cost?" becomes "He asked how much it cost" — the helper verb "does" disappears just as it would in any backshifted structure.