Narration Practice
All Unique SSC PYQs of Narration helpful for upcoming SSC exams. First go through the notes then practice these questions
Every rule of narration, once each.
About 670 previous-year questions collapse into 77 distinct rules. Repeats have been removed, so if you can clear this page you can clear the topic. Flag whatever bites and come back to the flagged list before the exam.
My mother said, “I am meeting your father today.”
one step back in time
My mother said that she was meeting my father that day.
am meeting → was meeting
your → my
today → that day
3 changes, 1 sentence
Tense ladder — how each tense drops one step
| Direct speech | Indirect speech | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Simple present | Simple past | write → wrote |
| Present continuous | Past continuous | am writing → was writing |
| Present perfect | Past perfect | have written → had written |
| Present perfect continuous | Past perfect continuous | have been writing → had been writing |
| Simple past | Past perfect | wrote → had written |
| Past continuous | Past perfect continuous | was writing → had been writing |
| Past perfect | Past perfect (no change) | already at the bottom of the ladder |
| will / shall | would | will go → would go |
| can | could | |
| may | might | |
| must | had to | stays “must” for a standing rule |
| could, would, should, might, ought to, used to | no change | no further past form exists |
When the tense does not move at all
| Situation | Example |
|---|---|
| Reporting verb is present or future | He says, “I am tired.” → He says that he is tired. |
| Reporting verb is present perfect | He has said, “I will come.” → He has said that he will come. |
| Universal truth or scientific fact | She said that the earth moves round the sun. |
| Habitual action or proverb | He said that man proposes and God disposes. |
| Historical fact with a fixed date | He said that India became free in 1947. |
| Sentence already in past perfect | nothing lower to shift into |
| Unreal or inverted conditional | “Had entropy been truly random …”, “Were the leitmotif transposed …” — the subjunctive form and its inversion are carried across word for word. |
| Restrictive inversion | “Only after the ceasefire will negotiations begin” — the inversion survives; only the modal shifts. |
Time and place words
| Direct | Indirect | Direct | Indirect |
|---|---|---|---|
| now | then | here | there |
| today | that day | this | that |
| tonight | that night | these | those |
| tomorrow | the next day | hence | thence |
| yesterday | the previous day | come | go |
| last night | the previous night | thus | so |
| next week / month | the following week / month | ago | before |
| last week / month | the previous week / month | just | then |
Sentence type decides the reporting verb and the connector
| Type | Reporting verb | Connector / structure |
|---|---|---|
| Statement | said, told, replied, remarked | that |
| Yes / no question | asked, enquired, wondered | if / whether — never “that” |
| Wh- question | asked, enquired | the wh- word itself; statement word order |
| Order | ordered, commanded | to + V1 |
| Request | requested, begged | to + V1; drop “please” |
| Advice | advised, suggested, warned | to / not to + V1 |
| Prohibition | forbade | to + V1 (the “not” is inside “forbade”) |
| Let us … | suggested, proposed | to + person + that + we/they should |
| Exclamation | exclaimed with joy / sorrow / surprise | that; “what a / how” → “very, great” |
| Wish or prayer | wished, prayed | that; may → might |
The three traps that decide most questions
| Half-shift | The verb is corrected but the time word is left behind, or the other way round. “would go … tomorrow” is wrong; it must be “would go … the next day”. |
| said / told | “Told” must be followed straight by a person: told me, told her. “Told to me” and “said me” are both wrong. With no listener named, use “said”. |
| Aspect drift | A continuous stays continuous and a perfect stays perfect. “was writing” must become “had been writing”, not “had written”. |