Question

Spot the error in the following sentence.
He said, "What a wonderful surprise"!

• A. no comma
• B. quotation marks instead of exclamation
• C. exclamation inside quotes
• D. no change

Hint:

Punctuation that belongs to the quoted words goes inside the quotation marks.

Answer 1

The Correct Option is C

Step 1: Understanding the Concept:
The sentence is: He said, "What a wonderful surprise"! We must find what is wrong with the punctuation.

Step 2: Key Formula or Approach:
When the words inside quotation marks form their own complete exclamation or question, the exclamation mark or question mark belongs to those quoted words and must be placed before the closing quotation mark, not after it.

Step 3: Detailed Explanation:
Here, "What a wonderful surprise" is itself an exclamatory remark, spoken with feeling, so it needs its own exclamation mark as part of the quoted speech.
In the given sentence, the exclamation mark sits after the closing quotation mark: "What a wonderful surprise"! This wrongly treats the exclamation as belonging to the reporting sentence "He said" rather than to the quoted words.
The comma after "said" is already used correctly to introduce direct speech, so that part needs no fix. Swapping the quotation marks for an exclamation mark would remove the quotes needed to show the exact spoken words, so that is not the fix either.
The only correction needed is moving the exclamation mark inside the quotes: He said, "What a wonderful surprise!"

Step 4: Final Answer:
The exclamation mark should be placed inside the quotation marks, so option (c) is correct.