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Analysing Writers' Effects and Language Choices: Question 2

Syllabus R3, R4

Multiple choice 1 mark

Read the passage, then answer the question.

By midnight, the candle in the attic room had burned to a stub, its flame flinching each time the window rattled. Shadows stretched long across the floorboards, bending around the corners of an old trunk like curious visitors reluctant to leave. Mara sat cross-legged on the bed, the diary open on her knees, its pages the colour of weak tea.

Outside, the wind rattled the loose pane again, and somewhere in the walls a pipe groaned, low and tired. It was as if the house itself were turning over in its sleep. Mara's eyes were heavy, but each time she nearly drifted into sleep, the candle's flame would gutter and dip, dragging her back to wakefulness.

She had read the same paragraph four times without taking in a single word, her attention snagged instead on the small, restless dance of light and shadow across the ceiling. Somewhere far below, a door clicked shut, and the house settled into an uneasy, listening silence.

Which technique does the writer use in the phrase "a pipe groaned, low and tired"?

Choose an answer to check it, then compare with the worked solution below.
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Worked solution

Why C is correct

“Groaned” and “tired” are qualities associated with a living, and specifically human, body, a low sound of discomfort and a state of exhaustion. A pipe cannot literally feel tired or groan in pain; the writer is giving it a human quality it does not actually possess, which is the definition of personification. The effect is to make the old house feel almost alive and weary late at night, matching the drowsy, unsettled atmosphere of the scene.

Why the other options are wrong

  • A (simile) requires an explicit comparison using “like” or “as”. The tested phrase contains neither word. It directly gives the pipe a human quality rather than comparing it to a separate second thing.
  • B (metaphor) would require the pipe to be directly described as something else (e.g. “the pipe was an old man groaning”). Here the pipe is simply given a human action and feeling, not equated with a different object. That distinction is exactly what makes it personification rather than metaphor.
  • D (alliteration) depends on repeated initial sounds in nearby words. “Groaned, low and tired” does not repeat an initial consonant sound across its key words, so there is no alliteration in this phrase.