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.
(4 points)

Answer 1

1) "Her stomach dropped like a free-falling elevator." This is an example of a simile, which compares Melanie's feeling of nervousness to the sensation of a stomach dropping in an elevator. It suggests that Melanie's nervousness was intense and sudden, similar to how one's stomach would drop in a rapidly descending elevator.

2) "She bent the microphone toward her mouth, like the straw in her pink lemonade." This is also a simile, comparing how Melanie positioned the microphone to how one would position a straw in a glass of pink lemonade. It suggests that Melanie handled the microphone delicately and with care, much like one would handle a straw when drinking a refreshing beverage.