Name:____________________
Figurative Language Review
*Use this sheet to help you study for the benchmark*
Figurative language is imaginative writing or speed that is not meant to be taken literally. Here are some common
figures of speech:

A simile uses a word such as like or as to compare two apparently unlike things: Her eyes were like
beacons of light.

A metaphor compares two apparently unlike things but does not use like or as: The grass was a carpet of
green.


Personification gives human qualities to nonhuman or inanimate things: The waves danced in glee.
Hyperbole is an extreme exaggeration to create emphasis or effect: I had to wait in the station for ten
days—an eternity.
DIRECTIONS: Circle the letter of the answer that best matches each numbered item.
1. comparison using like or as
A. metaphor
B. personification
C. simile
D. hyperbole
2. the snow kissed her nose.
A. metaphor
B. personification
C. simile
D. hyperbole
3. a day was twenty-four hours long but seemed like a million years
A. metaphor
B. personification
C. simile
D. hyperbole
4. a line of poetry that says, “Their words are trumpet blasts.”
A. metaphor
B. personification
C. simile
D. hyperbole
5. the little waves, with their soft, white hands,
A. metaphor
B. personification
C. simile
D. hyperbole
6. I could listen to that song on repeat forever.
A. metaphor
B. personification
C. simile
D. hyperbole
7. then join you with them, like a rib of steel, to make strength stronger.
A. metaphor
B. personification
C. simile
D. hyperbole
8. His smile was a mile wide.
A. metaphor
B. personification
C. simile
D. hyperbole
9. two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.
A. metaphor
B. personification
C. simile
D. hyperbole
Connection to The Outsiders
DIRECTIONS: Underline any examples of figurative language you see in the following passages, and then
identify them as what type. There might be more than one that applies to the passage.
10. “The hill the church was on dropped off suddenly about twenty feet from the back door, and you could
see for miles and miles. It was like sitting on the top of the world” (69).
11. “I had nearly forgotten that Cherry was listening to me. But when I came back to reality and looked at her,
I was startled to find her white as a sheet” (34).
12. “We could see for miles; see the ribbon of highway and the small dots that were houses and cars” (76).
13. “I like fast driving and Johnny was crazy about drag races, but we both got a little green around the gills
when Dally took a corner on two wheels with the brakes screaming” (83).
14. Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.