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Help Detective Santiago finalize her case notes! Select ALL the grammatically correct ways she can report the suspect's somewhat embarrassing alibi.
Original quote from the suspect: "I ate the entire pepperoni pizza by myself."
The correct answers are The suspect claimed that he had eaten the entire pepperoni pizza by himself and The suspect claimed that he ate the entire pepperoni pizza by himself.
When reporting an event that was spoken in the past simple ("ate"), you can backshift it to the past perfect ("had eaten") to clearly show that the action happened before the reporting verb ("claimed").
However, it is also perfectly correct to keep the verb in the past simple ("ate") in reported speech, as long as the chronological sequence of events is clear from the context.
"Has eaten" (present perfect) and "eats" (present simple) do not follow the sequence of tenses for a past reporting verb.