Question

Use the paragraph to complete the activity.

Melanie walked out onto the stage, and her stomach dropped like a free-falling elevator. She crept slowly over to the podium and bent the microphone toward her mouth, like the straw in her pink lemonade. She gathered up all of her courage and began to speak, her voice an impostor as it boomed through the microphone. She flinched at its unfamiliarity and scanned the room for her mother's face.

In three to five sentences, identify two examples of figurative language from the passage above and explain what each example of figurative language means.

Answer 1

One example is the simile "her stomach dropped like a free-falling elevator," which compares her nervous feeling to the sudden, sinking sensation of an elevator dropping, showing she felt a quick rush of anxiety. Another example is the metaphor "her voice an impostor as it boomed through the microphone," which compares her voice to an impostor to show that the loud, unfamiliar sound did not feel like her own and made her uncomfortable and unsure. Both images emphasize her fear and self-consciousness about speaking in front of the audience.