Making comparisons II | Assessment Resource Banks

This task is about identifying and explaining the use of personification in a poem.

In each of the following poems an object is being described as if it is an animal.

Next to each poem:

write the name of the object and the animal that are being compared, and
write down three ways each object is made to seem as if it is alive.

The first one has been done as an example.

a) Asparagus

Like a nest

Of snakes

Awakened, craning

Long-necked

Out of the

Ground: to stand

With sharp

Scaly heads

Alert, tasting

The air,

Taking the sun,

Looking around.

i) What object and animal are being compared?

asparagus and snakes

ii) Write down three ways in which the object is made to seem as if it is alive.

The asparagus fronds crane their necks
They have sharp scaly heads
They look around

Question 1Change answer

b) Tractor

The tractor rests

In the shed,

Dead or asleep,

But with high

Hind wheels

Held so still

We know

It is only waiting,

Ready to leap -

Like a heavy

Brown

Grasshopper

i) What object and animal are being compared?

and

ii) Write down three ways in which the object is made to seem as if it is alive.

Question 1Change answer

c) Safety pin

Closed, it sleeps

On its side

Quietly,

The silver

Image

Of some

Small fish;

Opened, it snaps

Its tail out

Like a thin

Shrimp, and looks

At the sharp

Point with a

Surprised eye.

i) What object and animal are being compared?

and

ii) Write down three ways in which the object is made to seem as if it is alive.

Question 1Change answer

d) Holden Commodore

In the early evening,

I see a big red lion

with its eyes shining yellow.

It prowls for ages

along the road

and only stops

to drink at Caltex.

I can hear it roar.

i) What object and animal are being compared?

and

ii) Write down three ways in which the object is made to seem as if it is alive.