He said, "I must go next week."

Solution (By Examveda Team)

This question tests your understanding of Reported Speech, specifically in the context of changing from Direct to Indirect Speech when the sentence contains a modal verb like "must" and a time expression like "next week".

Reported Speech is the act of reporting what someone else has said, without quoting them directly. In English grammar, when converting direct speech to indirect (or reported) speech, we typically follow rules of tense change, pronoun change, and time expression change.

Direct Speech: He said, "I must go next week."

Step-by-step conversion:
The reporting verb is "said" in the past tense, so we generally shift the tense of the reported speech.
The modal verb "must" is a special case. It can change depending on the context: - When "must" is used for obligation (as it is here), it usually changes to "would have to" in reported speech.
The time expression "next week" changes to "the following week" in reported speech.
The pronoun "I" changes to "he" to match the subject.

Correct transformation:
"He said that he would have to go the following week."

Correct Answer: Option C: He said that he would have to go the following week.

Other Options:
Option A: He said that he must go next week. — ❌ Incorrect because "must" and "next week" are not changed according to the rules of reported speech.
Option B: He said that he must go the following week. — ❌ Incorrect because "must" should change to "would have to".
Option D: He said that he was to go the following week. — ❌ Grammatically possible, but less natural and not the standard transformation for "must".

Conclusion: The best and most accurate option is Option C.