Change the sentence “I never eat meat, he explained” into indirect speech.

Option C is correct. The core concept is reported speech with three changes: the reporting verb moves to 'explained that', the first person 'I' becomes 'he' to match the reporter's viewpoint, and the simple present 'eat' is backshifted to the simple past 'ate' because the reporting verb is in the past. 'Never' stays as it is.

• A is wrong. 'Explains' is present tense, which does not match the past reporting verb, and 'I eat meat' drops the word 'never', reversing the speaker's meaning.
• B is wrong. 'Explained to eat' is ungrammatical because 'explain' does not take an infinitive in this way, and the sentence no longer reports what the speaker said.
• D is wrong. It assigns the statement to the wrong speaker ('I explained') and leaves 'eats' unshifted, so it is grammatically off on both counts.

In Mains terms, precise reporting of statements matters in essay and précis work, where a shift in speaker or tense can change the meaning of a quotation.

Trap: aspirants often change 'explained' to 'explains' thinking the tense must match the present habit described. The reporting verb is already past, so it stays as it is and only the reported clause moves back.