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.

Question

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 of figurative language in the passage is "her stomach dropped like a free-falling elevator." This is a simile, which compares the feeling of her stomach dropping to the sensation of an elevator falling rapidly. It emphasizes the suddenness and intensity of her nervousness.

Another example of figurative language is "her voice an impostor as it boomed through the microphone." This is a metaphor, which compares her voice to an impostor, or someone pretending to be someone else. It suggests that her voice doesn't feel like her own and highlights her discomfort with public speaking.