📅 Created: 15 Jun, 2023
🔄 Updated: 23 Aug, 2025

“Where did you live?” my boss asked. My boss wanted to know where ___ . ?

Explanation

The correct answer is D) "I had lived," and it is based on the concept of reported speech and the sequence of tenses in English. When we report a question, the verb tense often shifts back in time. The original question, “Where did you live?” uses the past simple tense ('did live') because it is asking about a specific period in the past.

In reporting this question, the tense must change to reflect this shift. Since the action of living took place before the boss’s inquiry, we need to use the past perfect tense, which is constructed using "had" plus the past participle ("lived"). Therefore, the phrase becomes “my boss wanted to know where I had lived.”

Other options, such as A) "do I live" and C) "I live," are present tense and do not appropriately reflect the past context of the original question. Option B) "did I live," while in the past tense, does not convey the necessary sequence of events that the past perfect tense does. In summary, "I had lived" accurately represents the timing and context of the original question when reported.