Language & Poetry

'The wind whispered through the trees.' Which technique is this?

• APersonification✓
• BSimile
• CRhyme
• DAlliteration

Answer: Giving the wind a human action ('whispered') is personification.

'As brave as a lion' is an example of:

• AA metaphor
• BA pun
• CA simile✓
• DOnomatopoeia

Answer: A simile compares using 'like' or 'as' — 'as brave as a lion'.

'The classroom was a zoo.' Which technique is this?

• ARhyme
• BAlliteration
• CSimile
• DMetaphor✓

Answer: A metaphor says something IS something else (without 'like'/'as') — the classroom was a zoo.

'Slippery snakes slithered silently' uses which technique?

• APersonification
• BSimile
• CAlliteration✓
• DMetaphor

Answer: Alliteration is the repetition of the same starting sound — the 's' sounds here.

'Bang!', 'Crash!' and 'Buzz' are examples of:

• ARhyme
• BMetaphor
• COnomatopoeia✓
• DSimile

Answer: Onomatopoeia is when a word imitates the sound it describes.

Which pair of words rhymes?

• ATree / leaf
• BSun / star
• CCat / dog
• DMoon / soon✓

Answer: Rhyming words end with the same sound: 'moon' and 'soon'.

Which word completes the simile: 'as cold as ___'?

• Aice✓
• Bsand
• Cfire
• Dthe sun

Answer: 'As cold as ice' is a common simile.

Which language device is used in this line: 'The motorway was a river of red brake lights.'?

• ASimile
• BPersonification
• CMetaphor✓
• DOnomatopoeia

Answer: The motorway is said to BE a river rather than to be like one, and a direct comparison made without 'like' or 'as' is a metaphor. Writing 'like a river' would have made it a simile, and nothing in the line is given human qualities or imitates a sound.

Which device is used in this line: 'The wind clawed at the door and shouldered its way down the empty lane.'?

• AHyperbole
• BSimile
• CPersonification✓
• DOnomatopoeia

Answer: The wind is given living actions, clawing and shouldering, which is personification. There is no comparison using 'like' or 'as', nothing is exaggerated for effect, and no word in the line imitates a sound.

Which device is used in this line: 'The snake slid silently across the sun-baked stone.'?

• AOnomatopoeia
• BSibilance✓
• CRhetorical question
• DMetaphor

Answer: The soft 's' sound repeats right through the line, and here it echoes the hiss of the snake so the sound of the writing matches its subject. The line is alliterative too, but sibilance is the more precise term when the repeated sound is specifically 's'. Onomatopoeia would need a word that imitates a sound, such as 'hiss' itself.

Which device is used in this line: 'The gravel crunched and the gate creaked.'?

• AHyperbole
• BOnomatopoeia✓
• CSimile
• DPersonification

Answer: 'Crunched' and 'creaked' are words that imitate the noises they name, and words built out of their own sound are onomatopoeia.

Which device is used in this line: 'I have asked you a million times to shut that door.'?

• AHyperbole✓
• BMetaphor
• CAlliteration
• DSimile

Answer: The number is a deliberate exaggeration rather than a real count, used to show frustration. Exaggeration for effect is hyperbole.

Which of these lines contains a simile?

• AThe fog swallowed the harbour
• BThe bell clanged and clattered
• CHer voice was as sharp as broken glass✓
• DHe was a lion in defence

Answer: A simile compares two things using 'like' or 'as', so comparing a voice to broken glass with 'as sharp as' is a simile. Calling a player a lion states the comparison directly, which makes it a metaphor.

Which device is used in this line: 'Dark, dripping doorways lined the deserted lane.'?

• ASibilance
• BAssonance
• COnomatopoeia
• DAlliteration✓

Answer: The 'd' sound is repeated at the start of several words in the line, which is alliteration. Sibilance repeats 's' sounds and assonance repeats vowel sounds inside words.

'The old house groaned under the weight of the snow.' What is the main effect of the word 'groaned'?

• AIt tells the reader exactly how heavy the snow was
• BIt creates a cheerful, comic tone
• CIt shows the writer is describing a person
• DIt makes the house seem alive and in pain✓

Answer: Groaning is a sound made by a living creature under strain, so the word gives the house human suffering and builds a sense of threat. Naming a device is only half the answer; the effect on the reader is the other half.

'Well, that went brilliantly,' said Ravi, staring at the smoking remains of the cake. What is the tone of Ravi's words?

• AGenuinely delighted
• BFrightened
• CFormal and polite
• DSarcastic✓

Answer: The praise is the opposite of what the scene actually shows, and saying the opposite of what you mean in order to mock a situation is sarcasm. Tone is worked out from the gap between the words and the context.

'Fog pressed against the windows and a single lamp guttered in the hallway.' What mood does this create?

• ATense and eerie✓
• BWarm and welcoming
• CBusy and cheerful
• DCalm and sunny

Answer: Fog that presses in and a lamp that is about to go out both shut down what can be seen and hint that something is closing in, which builds a tense, eerie atmosphere.

You are writing a letter to your head teacher asking for a change to the school day. Which register should you use?

• AFormal and polite✓
• BChatty and informal, using slang
• CAngry and demanding
• DEmotional and pleading

Answer: Register means how formal your language is, and it has to match the audience and the purpose. A serious request to a head teacher calls for Standard English and controlled, courteous wording.

'You know how this feels. You have stood where I am standing.' Which rhetorical device is being used?

• ARule of three
• BDirect address✓
• CRepetition of a metaphor
• DRhetorical question

Answer: Speaking straight to the audience as 'you' is direct address, and it pulls the listener into the argument by making it personal rather than abstract.

'This plan is unfair, unworkable and unwanted.' Which device is being used?

• AA simile
• BThe rule of three✓
• CA rhetorical question
• DOnomatopoeia

Answer: Three items listed together build a rhythm that makes a point stick in the mind, which speakers call the rule of three. The repeated 'un-' beginning adds to the hammering effect.

'How much longer must we wait for a safe crossing outside our school?' Why would a writer use a question like this?

• ATo collect information from the reader
• BTo show the writer is unsure of the answer
• CTo change the subject of the argument
• DTo lead the reader to agree without replying✓

Answer: A rhetorical question is not asked in order to be answered. It steers the reader towards the answer the writer already has in mind, so the agreement feels like the reader's own idea.

In a Shakespeare play, what is a soliloquy?

• AA comic scene between two servants
• BA speech made to another character on stage
• CA speech by a character alone on stage✓
• DAn instruction telling the actor where to stand

Answer: A soliloquy is delivered by a character who is alone, so the audience hears thoughts nobody else in the play can hear. A short remark aimed at the audience while others are present is an aside, and an instruction to the actor is a stage direction.

The audience watching a play knows the drink on the table is poisoned, but the character reaching for it does not. What is this called?

• AAn aside
• BDramatic irony✓
• CA soliloquy
• DA stage direction

Answer: Dramatic irony is created when the audience knows something a character does not, and it builds tension because we can see the danger arriving before the character does.

A line of iambic pentameter contains ten syllables. How many of those syllables are stressed?

• ATwo
• BTen
• CThree
• DFive✓

Answer: Iambic pentameter is built from five iambs, and each iamb is one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable. Ten syllables therefore carry five stresses, which gives the heartbeat rhythm Shakespeare uses.

In a poem, what is enjambment?

• AA sentence running past the line end✓
• BA strong pause in the middle of a line of verse
• CA group of lines separated by a blank line
• DA pattern of repeated sounds at line endings

Answer: Enjambment is when the sense of a line carries over into the next line with no punctuation to stop it, which can quicken the pace or spring a surprise. A strong pause within a line is a caesura, and a group of lines is a stanza.

The first four lines of a poem end with the words 'night', 'sea', 'light' and 'free'. What is the rhyme scheme?

• AABAB✓
• BAABB
• CABBA
• DABCD

Answer: Each new end sound is given the next letter and a repeated sound reuses the earlier letter. 'Night' rhymes with 'light' and 'sea' rhymes with 'free', so the sounds alternate as ABAB.

A poem is written with no rhyme scheme and no regular rhythm. What is this form called?

• AA sonnet
• BA ballad
• CFree verse✓
• DBlank verse

Answer: Free verse has neither a rhyme scheme nor a set metre, which lets the poet shape the rhythm around the meaning. Blank verse is unrhymed but still keeps a regular rhythm, and a sonnet has a fixed fourteen-line form.

In the poetic line 'She stopped. The door stood open.' the full stop in the middle of the line creates which feature?

• AA caesura✓
• BEnjambment
• CA stanza break
• DA rhyme scheme

Answer: A strong pause inside a line of poetry is a caesura, and it makes the reader stop short, which suits a moment of shock. Enjambment is the opposite, running the sense on past the end of a line.

Read this opening from a novel published in 1859: 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.' What is the effect of putting the two opposites side by side?

• AIt shows the narrator cannot remember what the period was like
• BIt sets up a contrast between extremes that runs through the whole story✓
• CIt tells the reader the exact year in which the story is set
• DIt shows that the two halves are describing two different books

Answer: Balancing two opposites in one sentence tells the reader straight away that this is a world of extremes, and that contrast carries on through the novel. The line gives no date, and the repeated sentence pattern is there to link the two halves, not to separate them.

Which of these nineteenth-century novels was written by Charles Dickens?

• AJane Eyre
• BWuthering Heights
• CGreat Expectations✓
• DPride and Prejudice

Answer: Great Expectations is by Charles Dickens. Jane Eyre is by Charlotte Bronte, Wuthering Heights by her sister Emily Bronte, and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

Read this opening from a poem published in 1794: 'Tyger Tyger, burning bright, / In the forests of the night'. What does repeating the word at the very start do?

• AIt makes the two lines rhyme with each other
• BIt compares the tiger to a fire using the word 'like'
• CIt turns the opening into a question for the reader to answer
• DIt gives the poem a strong, chanting beat and fixes attention on the animal✓

Answer: Repeating the word at the start gives the line a drumming, chant-like rhythm and holds the reader on the tiger before anything else is said. The rhyme in this pair comes from 'bright' and 'night', there is no 'like' or 'as' so no simile, and the opening is a statement rather than a question.

In older texts you will meet the words 'thou' and 'thee'. What do they mean in modern English?

• AYou✓
• BThey
• CWe
• DIt

Answer: 'Thou' and 'thee' are older forms of 'you' used when speaking to one person, with 'thou' as the subject and 'thee' as the object. Knowing them stops older writing looking harder than it is.