Answer: He asked if he was a scientist or an arts graduate.
Step-by-step explanation:
Indirect speech is a report of someone else's statement, question or utterance. By using indirect speech, we avoid quoting the statement directly as in direct speech.
In some languages, including English, the tense changes as we convert a direct speech into indirect speech, which is called the sequence of tenses. In this example: Is he a scientist or an arts graduate?, present simple tense becomes past simple tense in indirect speech - He asked if he was a scientist or an arts graduate.