How do you identify figurative language and literary devices, and how do you explain their effect rather than just naming them?
Analyzing figurative language and literary devices in literary texts: identifying simile, metaphor, personification, imagery, symbolism, hyperbole, and tone, and explaining the effect each creates (the feeling, picture, or meaning it builds) on an Ohio English II literary passage, rather than only labelling the device.
How to analyze figurative language and literary devices on the Ohio English II test: identifying simile, metaphor, personification, imagery, symbolism, and tone, and explaining their effect, not just naming them. The high-value move is what the device does, the feeling or meaning it builds.
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What this skill is asking
Figurative language is language that means more than its literal words, and literary devices are the techniques a writer uses to create effect. On Ohio's State Test for English Language Arts II, you will be asked to identify simile, metaphor, personification, imagery, symbolism, hyperbole, and tone, but identification is only the floor. Ohio's Learning Standards place this under Craft and Structure, and the marks come from explaining the effect: what feeling, picture, or meaning the device builds. An answer that says "it is a metaphor" without explaining what the metaphor does leaves credit on the table. This page covers the common devices, how to tell them apart, and the single habit that wins these items, adding "which creates" or "which emphasizes" to every device you name.
The common devices
The first test of a figurative item is to name the device correctly, and the traps are usually near-misses: a simile mistaken for a metaphor, personification mistaken for hyperbole. Read the line closely. If the comparison uses "like" or "as," it is a simile; if it states an identity, it is a metaphor; if human actions are given to a thing, it is personification. But once you have named it, you are only half done.
Effect is where the marks are
This is the same discipline that wins points across the test. Tone, for instance, is not just "the tone is sad," but how specific word choices build that sadness, which connects to denotation, connotation, and figurative meaning. And a device often serves the theme: an image of decay can carry an idea about loss, tying this skill to analyzing theme in literary texts.
Reading a symbol
Symbolism is the device students find hardest, because a symbol is an ordinary object asked to carry an idea.
Try this
Q1. On the English II test, naming a device earns little. What earns the marks? [Recall]
- Cue. Explaining the effect: what feeling, picture, or meaning the device creates. Add "which creates" or "which emphasizes" to every device you name.
Q2. "The old house sagged under the weight of its memories." Name the device and explain its effect. [Short explanation]
- Cue. Personification (the house "sagged under the weight of its memories," a human burden). The effect is to make the house feel tired and haunted by its past, which can set a melancholy tone and hint at a theme of loss.
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of ODEW exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
Ohio English II EOC (style)1 marks'The streets yawned and stretched as the buses groaned awake.' Which device is used, and what is its effect? (1) Simile, comparing streets to people. (2) Personification, which makes the waking city feel sluggish and alive. (3) Hyperbole, an exaggeration. (4) Alliteration, repeated sounds.Show worked answer →
Answer: (2). Yawning, stretching, and groaning awake are human actions given to streets and buses, so the device is personification. The effect is to make the early-morning city feel slow, heavy, and alive, which matches the answer that names both the device and what it does.
The trap options name a real device but the wrong one (1, 3, 4). Even when you can rule those out, the test rewards the option that adds the effect, so always read for "which creates" or "which makes."
Ohio English II EOC (style)1 marksA recurring locked gate appears three times in a passage and is each time linked to a chance the narrator missed. The locked gate most likely functions as: (1) a literal description only (2) a symbol of lost opportunity (3) a simile (4) a spelling error.Show worked answer →
Answer: (2). A concrete object that recurs and is repeatedly tied to a larger idea is a symbol; here the locked gate stands for opportunities the narrator could not reach. To read a symbol, ask what idea the object keeps being connected to, then support that meaning with the lines that make the link.
A symbol is not just scenery (1), nor a comparison using "like" or "as" (3). The repetition and the consistent link to missed chances are what make it symbolic.
Related dot points
- Analyzing theme and central idea in literary texts: stating a theme as a complete sentence about life or human nature rather than a topic word, distinguishing theme from subject and from moral, and tracing how a writer develops a theme through plot, character, and detail across an unseen Ohio English II literary passage.
How to analyze theme on an Ohio English II literary passage: stating theme as a full sentence about life rather than a one-word topic, telling theme apart from subject and moral, and tracing how plot, character, and detail develop it. Theme appears in multiple-choice, multi-select, and evidence-based two-part items.
- Analyzing plot, conflict, and structure in literary texts: the stages of plot (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution), internal and external conflict, and how a writer's structural choices (order of events, flashback, foreshadowing, pacing) shape meaning on an Ohio English II literary passage.
How to analyze plot, conflict, and structure on the Ohio English II test: the five stages of plot, internal versus external conflict, and why a writer's ordering choices (flashback, foreshadowing, pacing) matter. Structure items reward explaining the effect of a choice, not just naming the stage.
- Analyzing character and point of view in literary texts: inferring traits and motivation from a character's words, actions, and thoughts (indirect characterization), tracking how a character changes, and explaining how the narrator's point of view (first person, third limited, third omniscient) controls what the reader knows on an Ohio English II literary passage.
How to analyze character and point of view on the Ohio English II test: inferring traits from actions (indirect characterization), tracking change, and explaining how first-person and third-person narration shape what the reader knows. The test rewards inference backed by a line, not labels.
- Reading poetry on the Ohio English II test: paraphrasing a poem for meaning (speaker, situation, feeling) before analyzing form, reading structure (stanzas, line breaks, refrain) and sound (rhyme, rhythm, repetition) as carriers of meaning, and explaining how a poem's figurative language builds its central idea on an unseen poem.
How to read poetry on the Ohio English II test: paraphrase for meaning first (speaker, situation, feeling), then read structure and sound as carriers of meaning. Poetry items reward connecting form to meaning, not naming meter or rhyme scheme for its own sake.
- Analyzing denotation, connotation, and figurative meaning on the Ohio English II test: distinguishing a word's denotation (literal dictionary meaning) from its connotation (the feeling or association it carries), reading figurative meaning including idiom and figures of speech, and explaining how an author's word choice shapes tone and meaning.
How to analyze denotation, connotation, and figurative meaning on the Ohio English II test: telling a word's literal meaning from its connotation, reading idiom and figures of speech, and explaining how word choice shapes tone. The test rewards reading the feeling a word carries, not just its definition.
Sources & how we know this
- ELA II course resources — ODEW (2025)
- Ohio's Learning Standards for English Language Arts — ODEW (2025)