Recognising the techniques writers use - imagery, simile, metaphor and personification - and explaining why a writer chose a particular word and the effect it has on the reader.
Where your child meets this in real life: Noticing how adverts, song lyrics and stories use language tricks to make you feel a certain way
Questions 16 to 28 of the English section are all about one reading passage: 7 multiple-choice questions, then 6 short written answers. That is nearly half the English marks.
SEAGReady breaks how writers use language into 2 steps, taught in order so each skill builds on the last.
Identify and name the technique a writer is using - simile, metaphor or personification - by checking each one's defining test.
Explain why a writer chose one word rather than a plainer one, and describe the effect the choice has on the reader - the picture it paints or the feeling it creates.
These two questions come from “The Wrong Shadow”, our free sample reading passage. Each one shows the lines of the story it needs. To practise like the real test, read the whole story and answer all its questions on the full sample page.
- Line 9: Before Owen reached it, a crooked shadow crept across one cottage roof and covered the moon.
Refer to: Line 9
- Line 28: The umbrella's shadow was a black bird, stretched enormous by the lamp.
Refer to: Line 28
This is the exact interactive worked example your child sees in SEAGReady. Step through it and watch the method build up.
Read these sentences from a story. 'Rain drummed on the roof. The drops on the window shone like silver beads. By lunchtime, the playground was a lake.'
Which technique is used in 'The drops on the window shone like silver beads'? Give the technique and the words that prove it.
The question targets only 'The drops on the window shone like silver beads', so test that whole phrase rather than choosing a feature from another sentence.
Step 1 of 6
Read these sentences from a story. 'Rain drummed on the roof. The drops on the window shone like silver beads. By lunchtime, the playground was a lake.'
Which technique is used in 'The drops on the window shone like silver beads'? Give the technique and the words that prove it.
It is a simile because 'like silver beads' explicitly compares the raindrops with beads.
The key insight: Name the technique from what the exact quoted words do, then prove the label. A nearby sentence may use a different technique, and one word alone may not settle the answer.
Common mix-up: Calling it a metaphor because the drops are compared with beads. Both similes and metaphors compare unlike things. Here 'like' makes the comparison explicit, so the exact phrase is a simile rather than a direct metaphor.
These are the misconceptions we see most often in how writers use language, including the ones our practice questions are specifically designed to catch.
Struggling with how writers use language? The real gap is often in one of these earlier topics.
Sitting the SEAG test this November? Read our last-month revision plan, Paper 1 vs Paper 2 and test day guide.
SEAGReady finds the exact step where your child gets stuck, teaches it with worked examples like the one above, and brings it back for review so it sticks.
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