Correct Answer: The students said, "How will we benefit from online classes?"

Solution : The correct option is the first option.

Direct speech involves directly quoting what someone says within quotation marks. The steps of conversion are as follows:

• The reporting verb "asked" is changed to "said" because the given sentence is an interrogative sentence.
• The statement is converted to a question using the question word how?
• The modal "would" is changed to its present form, "will".
• The third-person pronoun "they" is changed to the first-person pronoun "we".
• The words of the speaker are enclosed in the inverted commas.

Therefore, the sentence in direct speech would be: The students said, "How will we benefit from online classes?."