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Analysing Writers' Effects and Language Choices: Question 7

Syllabus R3, R4

Multiple choice 1 mark

Read the passage, then answer the question.

The first rocket screamed upward, a thin trail of orange sparks unwinding behind it before the sky cracked open in a burst of gold. The crowd on the riverbank gasped as one, a single intake of breath swallowed almost instantly by the boom that followed, rolling out over the water and rattling the windows of the houses opposite.

Between bursts, the display never truly went silent. Fizzing trails hissed as they fell, dying out just above the rooftops, and somewhere near the launch platform a low, steady thud-thud-thud marked each new shell being loaded. Children pressed their hands over their ears and laughed anyway, unwilling to look away even for a second.

The finale arrived without warning. A dozen rockets launched together, and the sky detonated in overlapping cracks and booms, colour spilling into colour until the whole riverbank was lit gold, then green, then a deep, trembling red. When it finally ended, the silence afterward felt strange and enormous, broken only by the polite patter of applause and, somewhere close by, a baby beginning to cry.

Which technique does the writer use in the phrase "Fizzing trails hissed as they fell"?

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

Why B is correct

“Fizzing” and “hissed” are words whose sound imitates the actual sound being described, the sharp, sputtering noise of sparks burning out in the air. This is the definition of onomatopoeia: choosing words that sound like the thing they describe. The effect is to make the reader almost hear the fireworks fizzing and hissing rather than simply picture them, adding to the sensory immersion of the scene.

Why the other options are wrong

  • A (simile) requires an explicit comparison using “like” or “as” to link two different things. The “as” in “as they fell” is a time connective meaning “while”, not a comparison word. There is no second thing the trails are being likened to.
  • C (personification) would require the trails to be given a distinctly human or animal quality (an action or feeling only a living thing can have). “Fizzing” and “hissed” describe a physical sound, not a human characteristic, so this is not personification.
  • D (metaphor) would require the trails to be directly equated with something else (e.g. “the trails were snakes hissing through the sky”). Here the trails are simply described making a sound, not renamed as a different thing.