Metaphors and Similes: A 15-Question Practice Quiz

Here’s a challenge. Read the fifteen questions below with a pencil, write your answers on paper, and only then scroll to the key. No peeking. Practice with metaphors and similes only works if you commit to a guess first, even a wrong one, because the wrong ones are what teach you.

Each question is a single sentence. All of them are original, so there’s nothing to look up and nothing you can half-remember from a poetry unit.

Round 1: simile or metaphor?

Label each sentence. Look for a comparison word, but also look for what’s being compared.

1. The new teacher was a breath of fresh air.
2. Her handwriting looks like a spider fell into the ink.
3. My phone is a leash I don’t know how to cut.
4. He slept like a log.
5. The city was a beehive at noon.
6. The kids poured out of school like marbles from a bag.
7. Time is a thief that never gets caught.
8. His voice was rougher than a gravel road.

Round 2: the traps

These four look like figurative language, but not all of them are the kind you’re hunting for. Choose from: simile, metaphor, hyperbole, personification, or none of these.

1. She is as tall as her sister.
2. I’m so tired I could sleep for a year.
3. The wind whispered through the pines.
4. He runs like his father.

Round 3: rewrite it

1. Change this simile into a metaphor: “The exam was like a mountain.”
2. Change this metaphor into a simile: “Her patience is a thin thread.”
3. Write your own metaphor for a Monday morning. Then rewrite it as a simile.

Answer key

Don’t skip the “why” column. It’s where the learning is, and it’s what you’ll remember on the real test.

#	Answer	Why
1	Metaphor	The teacher is not compared with “like.” She simply is a breath of fresh air.
2	Simile	“Looks like” joins handwriting and a spider.
3	Metaphor	Phone and leash, linked by “is.”
4	Simile	“Like a log.” It’s also a cliché.
5	Metaphor	City and beehive, no signal word.
6	Simile	“Like marbles.” Children and marbles are very different things.
7	Metaphor	Time is stated to be a thief.
8	Simile	“Than” does the comparing here, just as “like” would.
9	None of these	Two people, same category. It’s an ordinary comparison.
10	Hyperbole	Exaggeration, with no second thing being compared.
11	Personification	The wind gets a human action. Some teachers call this a type of metaphor, so follow your own class’s rule.
12	None of these	Again, two people. “Like his father” is plain description.
13	“The exam was a mountain.”	Delete “like.” The rest stays.
14	“Her patience is like a thin thread.”	Add “like.” You could also write “as thin as a thread.”
15	Varies	Mine would be “Monday is a wet coat.” Simile: “Monday feels like a wet coat.”

What your score says

Thirteen or more right? You’re solid. Eight to twelve and the problem is almost always questions 9 and 12, the “as … as” and “like” traps. A comparison between two similar things isn’t figurative at all. Once that clicks, the score jumps.

Under eight, don’t worry. Go back to the first round and just circle the signal words. It’s a dull trick, but it works. Then repeat the quiz in a few days with different eyes.

One more thing about question 7. Several students I’ve watched answered “simile” because “time is a thief” sounds like a comparison. It is a comparison. That’s what a metaphor is. The label depends on the wording, not on how strong the image feels.

Bonus: rescue the cliché

Four sentences are below, and all four are tired. Try to rewrite each with something you’d actually picture. There’s no key, because there’s no single right answer.

• She was as pretty as a picture.
• The room was as cold as ice.
• He’s as stubborn as a mule.
• Her words cut like a knife.

The trick is to move from the stock object to a specific one. Not “cold as ice” but “cold as the inside of a church in February.” Not “stubborn as a mule” but “stubborn as a shopping cart with one bad wheel.” Specific beats familiar, nearly every time. It also teaches you that metaphors and similes are tools for seeing, and the quiz is only the warm-up.

How to learn from the ones you missed

Keep a small list. Next to every wrong answer, write the sentence again and underline the word that fooled you. After a week you’ll see a pattern. Most people trip on the same two or three things: verbs that hide a metaphor (question 1 is a quiet one), “as” used for ordinary comparison, or exaggeration that sounds poetic but isn’t.

Then do something small and slightly annoying. Pick up whatever you’re reading, find three comparisons, and label them. Newspapers are full of them. Sports pages are worse, in a good way. A week of this and metaphors and similes stop being quiz material and start jumping off the page at you.

Using these metaphors and similes with a class

The quiz works best out loud. Read each sentence, let students vote with hands, and ask someone who got it right to explain how. The explaining is the real exercise. If you teach at home, these homeschool idiom ideas pair well with it.

For extra practice, give students a topic and ask for one of each. Teachers make a good subject, and our list of metaphors for teachers is a handy model. Math is another favorite because it feels like an unlikely place for imagery, and similes for math shows it’s not. For poetry units, metaphors for poems goes a step deeper.

If your class gets confused by exaggeration, Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries on hyperbole gives a short definition with examples you can borrow.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the fastest way to tell a metaphor from a simile?

Check for “like,” “as,” or “than” joining two different things. Present means simile. Absent, but the sentence still says one thing is another, means metaphor.

Why isn’t “as tall as her sister” a simile?

Because it compares two people on one real quality. A simile pairs unlike things, such as a person and a tree, to create a picture.

Do I lose marks for calling personification a metaphor?

It depends on the teacher or exam board. Many textbooks list personification separately, so name it as such when the question offers that option.

How many practice sentences should I do a day?

Ten is plenty. A short daily set beats one long session, and you can write your own to keep things fresh.