CUET English - Verbal Ability - Literary Devices | Free Questions - Page 2

Q1:

2026: 20 May Shift 2

VA

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Literary Devices

Medium

Choose the sentences which are examples of the figure of speech--Simile:

A. Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale.

B. O my Love's like a red, red rose

C. The righteous shall flourish as the palm tree

D. Revenge is wild juice which destroys people.

Choose the correct answer from the options given below:

A, B and C only

A, B and D only

A, C, and D only

B, C and D only

Correct Answer

Option 1

Correct Answer

Explanation

Q2:

2026: 20 May Shift 2

VA

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Literary Devices

Medium

Match the words given in List-I with their expanded form given in List-II

LIST-I Word		LIST-II Expanded form
A. Allegory		I. a short story about a real person or event
B. Parable		II. a short story with a moral
C. Narrative		III. description of events given in a story
D. Anecdote		IV. a story that expresses ideas through symbols

Choose the correct answer from the options given below:

A - I, B - II, C - III, D - IV

A - IV, B - II, C - III, D - I

A - I, B - II, C - IV, D - III

A - III, B - IV, C - I, D - II

Correct Answer

Option 2

Correct Answer

Explanation

Q3:

2026: 20 May Shift 2

VA

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Literary Devices

Medium

Choose the expressions which are examples of the figure of speech--Antithesis:

A. To err is human, to forgive divine.

B. He had his jest, and they had his estate.

C. As spice flavours food, so variety makes life more pleasant.

D. Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.

Choose the correct answer from the options given below:

A, B and D only

B, C and D only

A, C and D only

A, B and C only

Correct Answer

Option 1

Correct Answer

Explanation

Q4:

2026: 20 May Shift 1

VA

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Literary Devices

Medium

Identify the examples of the correct use of Metaphor from the following options:-

(A) He is the vulture of the state.

(B) She behaved like a child.

(C) To err is human, to forgive divine.

(D) The waves thundered on the shore

Choose the correct answer from the options given below:-

(A) and (B) only

(C) and (D) only

(B), and (C) only

(A) and (D) only

Correct Answer

Option 4

Correct Answer

Explanation

Q5:

2026: 20 May Shift 1

VA

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Literary Devices

Easy

Match the expressions given in List-I with the correct figures of speech they illustrate given in List-II

List-I	List-II
(A) Visible darkness	(I) simile
(B) She is the star of our family	(II) metaphor
(C) I spent a sleepless night.	(III) oxymoron
(D) That baby boy is like a teddy bear.	(IV) transferred epithet

Choose the correct answer from the options given below:

(A) - (III), (B) - (II), (C) - (IV), (D) - (I)

(A) - (I), (B) - (II), (C) - (III), (D) - (IV)

(A) - (I), (B) - (II), (C) - (IV), (D) - (III)

(A) - (III), (B) - (IV), (C) - (I), (D) - (II)

Correct Answer

Option 1

Correct Answer

Explanation

Q6:

2026: 19 May Shift 2

VA

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Literary Devices

Easy

Choose the correct figure of speech used in the following lines:

O mischief, thou art swift

To enter in the thoughts of desperate men.

Assonance

Metaphor

Personification

Metonymy

Correct Answer

Option 3

Correct Answer

Explanation

Q7:

2026: 19 May Shift 2

VA

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Literary Devices

Easy

Choose the correct figure of speech used in the following sentence:

Why, man, if the rivers were dry, I am able to fill it with tears.

Epigram

Hyperbole

Personification

Apostrophe

Correct Answer

Option 2

Correct Answer

Explanation

Q8:

2026: 19 May Shift 1

VA

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Literary Devices

Easy

Identify the figure of speech used in the given sentence:

There was a deafening silence before the crest of the huge wave broke onto the deck.

Irony

Oxymoron

Hyperbole

Pun

Correct Answer

Option 2

Correct Answer

Explanation

Q9:

2026: 19 May Shift 1

VA

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Literary Devices

Easy

Match the figures of speech given in List-I with the sentences given in List-II.

List-I (Figures of Speech)	List-II (Sentences)
(A) Simile	(I) He runs faster than the wind.
(B) Personification	(II) He fought like a lion in the battle.
(C) Metaphor	(III) The moon smiled down on the earth.
(D) Hyperbole	(IV) She is the nightingale of our class.

Choose the correct answer from the options given below:

(A) - (II), (B) - (I), (C) - (IV), (D) - (III)

(A) - (IV), (B) - (I), (C) - (II), (D) - (III)

(A) - (II), (B) - (III), (C) - (IV), (D) - (I)

(A) - (II), (B) - (IV), (C) - (III), (D) - (I)

Correct Answer

Option 3

Correct Answer

Explanation

Q10:

2026: 18 May Shift 2

VA

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Literary Devices

Medium

Choose the correct option of the figures of speech used in the given sentence:

Moon faced, wane and pale, she was telling a thousand stories.

A. Metaphor

B. Personification

C. Oxymoron

D. Hyperbole

Choose the correct answer from the options given below:

A, B and D only

B and D only

A, B, and C

A and D only

Correct Answer

Option 4

Correct Answer

Explanation

Q11:

2026: 18 May Shift 2

VA

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Literary Devices

Easy

Match the words in LIST-I with the most appropriate examples given in LIST-II

	LIST-I Figure of speech		LIST-II Sentence
A.	Metonymy	I.	Turns out, they are taking turns and toiling away!
B.	Alliteration	II.	You are as wise as an owl.
C.	Simile	III.	You can now address the chair.
D.	Personification	IV.	Unfortunately, death has laid his hands on the king.

Choose the correct answer from the options given below:

A-I, B-II, C-III, D-IV

A-III, B-I, C-II, D-IV

A-I, B-III, C-IV, D-II

A-III, B-II, C-IV, D-I

Correct Answer

Option 2

Correct Answer

Explanation

Q12:

2026: 18 May Shift 1

VA

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Literary Devices

Medium

Read the following lines carefully and identify the figure of speech used:

"Romans, friends, countrymen, lend me your ears;

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him"

Synecdoche

Enjambment

Assonance

Anagram

Correct Answer

Option 1

Correct Answer

Explanation

Q13:

2026: 18 May Shift 1

VA

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Literary Devices

Medium

Read the following lines and identify the figure of speech used:

To shut those dark glowing eyes,

Violet fringed with golden amber.

It is the tail that has to blink

For eyes that are always open.

Metonymy

Imagery

Pun

Simile

Correct Answer

Option 2

Correct Answer

Explanation

Q14:

2026: 15 May Shift 1

VA

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Literary Devices

Medium

From the following options, choose the sentence which is an example of an Epigram:

She laughed from ear to ear.

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

Camel is a crucial animal of the desert.

He is as proud as a peacock.

Correct Answer

Option 2

Correct Answer

Explanation

Q15:

2026: 15 May Shift 1

VA

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Literary Devices

Medium

Identify the figure of speech used in the following sentence:

"The silence screamed louder than their arguments."

Anaphora

Personification

Hyperbole

Metaphor

Correct Answer

Option 2

Correct Answer

Explanation

Q16:

2026: 14 May Shift 2

VA

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Literary Devices

Easy

Read the following and identify the figures of speech used in the same:

Time tiptoed past us as we slept like logs, oblivious of the approaching danger.

Choose the correct option:

metaphor, personification, irony

onamatopoeia, paradox, simile

alliteration, anaphora, simile

alliteration, simile, personification

Correct Answer

Option 4

Correct Answer

Explanation

Q17:

2026: 14 May Shift 2

VA

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Literary Devices

Easy

Fill in the blank by selecting the most appropriate option to complete the figure of speech, oxymoron:

The deafening ______ in the house after everybody was gone, made her cry.

noise

silence

profundity

sounds

Correct Answer

Option 2

Correct Answer

Explanation

Q18:

2026: 14 May Shift 1

VA

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Literary Devices

Medium

Identify the correct figure of speech used in the following statement.

The anxious chair creaked in the waiting room.

Synecdoche

Simile

Transferred Epithet

Personification

Correct Answer

Option 3

Correct Answer

Explanation

Q19:

2026: 14 May Shift 1

VA

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Literary Devices

Medium

Identify the figure of speech in the following sentence:

The silence screamed accusation.

Hyperbole

Metaphor

Oxymoron

Litotes

Correct Answer

Option 3

Correct Answer

Explanation

Q20:

2026: 13 May Shift 1

VA

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Literary Devices

Medium

Read the given stanza carefully and choose the option that correctly identifies the figures of speech used:-

"Hope" is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul

And sings the tune without the words

And never stops-at all

Choose the correct answer from the options given below:-

simile and personification

metaphor and personification

metonymy and pun

assonance and simile

Correct Answer

Option 2

Correct Answer

Explanation

Q21:

2026: 13 May Shift 1

VA

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Literary Devices

Medium

Read the given lines carefully and choose the option that correctly identifies the figure of speech used:-

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so

Metaphor

Apostrophe

Onomatopoeia

Metonymy

Correct Answer

Option 2

Correct Answer

Explanation

Q22:

2026: 13 May Shift 1

VA

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Literary Devices

Medium

If the system hadn't stalled, Antar would never have guessed that the scrap of paper on his screen was the remnant of an ID card. It looked as though it had been rescued from a fire: the plastic laminate was warped and melted along the edge. The lettering was mostly illegible, and the photograph had vanished under a smudge of soot. But a four-inch metal chain had somehow stayed attached to the card: it hung down in a rusty loop from a perforation in the top left-hand corner, like a drooping tail. It was the chain that triggered the system, not the card.

The card turned up in one of those routine inventories that went flashing around the globe with metronome regularity, for no reason that Antar could understand, except that it was what the system did best. Once it got started, it would keep them coming, hour after hour, an endless succession of documents and objects, stopping only when it stumbled on something it couldn't file: the most trivial things usually. Once it was a glass paperweight, of the kind that rain snowflakes if you turn them upside down; another time it was a bottle of correcting fluid, from an irrigation overseer's office just south of the Arab Sea. Both times the machine went into a controlled frenzy, firing off questions, one after another.

Antar had met children who were like that: What? Why? When? Where? How? But the children asked because they were curious. With these AVA/Ile systems it was something else - something he could only think of as a simulated urge for self-improvement. He'd been using Ava for a couple of years now, and he was still awed by her eagerness to become herself. Anything she did not recognise, she'd take apart on screen, producing ever greater refinements of details.

Read the following sentence from the given passage carefully and identify the figure of speech used:-

Both times the machine went into a controlled frenzy, firing off questions, one after another.

oxymoron

onomatopoeia

simile

metonymy

Correct Answer

Option 1

Correct Answer

Explanation

Q23:

2026: 12 May Shift 2

VA

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Literary Devices

Hard

Match the phrases given in List-I with the figure of speech given in List-II

List-I	List-II
(A) An ambassador is an honest man who lies abroad for the welfare of his country.	(I) Antithesis
(B) Death lays his icy hands on kings	(II) Metaphor
(C) Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.	(III) Personification
(D) The painter has left his imprints on the sands of time.	(IV) Pun

Choose the correct answer from the options given below:

(A) - (II), (B) - (III), (C) - (I), (D) - (IV)

(A) - (IV), (B) - (III), (C) - (I), (D) - (II)

(A) - (I), (B) - (IV), (C) - (II), (D) - (III)

(A) - (III), (B) - (I), (C) - (IV), (D) - (II)

Correct Answer

Option 2

Correct Answer

Explanation

Q24:

2026: 12 May Shift 2

VA

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Literary Devices

Easy

Choose the correct figure of speech used in the sentence from the options given below:-

The daffodils bade the fly goodbye.

Personification

Metaphor

Transferred Epithet

Metonymy

Correct Answer

Option 1

Correct Answer

Explanation

Q25:

2026: 12 May Shift 1

VA

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Literary Devices

Easy

Identify the figure of speech in the following sentence:

After surviving the war, the soldier died in a car accident.

Irony

Pun

Synecdoche

Pleonasm

Correct Answer

Option 1

Correct Answer

Explanation

Q26:

2026: 12 May Shift 1

VA

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Literary Devices

Hard

Select the figures of speech used in the given lines.

Fly envious Time, till thou run out thy race,

Call on the lazy leaden-stepping hours

(A) personification, alliteration

(B) personification, simile

(C) antithesis, pun

(D) personification, metaphor

(A) and (D) only

(B) and (C) only

(A), (B), (C) only

(B) and (D) only

Correct Answer

Option 1

Correct Answer

Explanation

Q27:

2026: 12 May Shift 1

VA

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Literary Devices

Medium

The Mysore City Corporation building stood close to the palace and Janani and Vinod had been taken to the palace on the very day of their arrival, Sesha Uncle hurrying them along as if royalty itself were under threat and some fairy godmother had warned that come midnight, the palace would turn into a pumpkin. It was in the hope of tracing the official records of a writer's house that they had come to the corporation that morning. The corporation was housed in an ornate building with domes that resembled those of the palace. The exterior was painted the colour of egg yolk – pale yellow, with cornices in white. The crown molding was a cheery mix of red and maroon that matched the colour on the domes. It was hard to tell if the people who thronged the external corridors and the inner hallways were employees or members of the public.

Sesha Uncle and his entourage wandered around the labyrinthine hallways, peering into a honeycomb maze of dusty offices. Janani was glad Sesha Uncle and Rukmini Aunty had insisted on coming with her and Vinod. She was thrilled at the prospect of entering a den of intrigue. The reality was more banal: a cavernous room where sunlight filtered weakly through cracked glass, dust drifting lazily in the air. Clerks sat behind desks, some glued to their phones, others chatting. Files lay in precarious towers, abandoned mid-fall as though the building itself had given up on order.

Sesha Uncle found a clerk. Leaning in conspiratorially, he launched into a winding comparison between Mysore and Hannibal, Missouri. If Americans could preserve Mark Twain's house, he argued, surely Mysore could honour its greatest writer too. Sesha Uncle then asked about the ownership of R.K. Narayan's house, only to be redirected to another desk, empty because the responsible official was on personal leave for a festival. Mustering up whatever dignity he had left, Sesha Uncle hustled everyone out of the office. On the way home, he unleashed a torrent of abuse at the bureaucracy and its indifference to writers, and by the time they reached the house, Rukmini Aunty declared the subject finished and insisted on eating her lunch in peace.

The phrase "as though the building itself had given up on order" is an example of:

metaphor used to heighten architectural detail

personification suggesting institutional fatigue

pun meant to highlight change

irony targeting public participation

Correct Answer

Option 2

Correct Answer

Explanation

Q28:

2026: 11 May Shift 2

VA

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Literary Devices

Medium

Identify the figure of speech used in the following expression:

"The savage roar of the cruel ocean waves..."

Apostrophe

Transferred Epithet

Personification

Metaphor

Correct Answer

Option 3

Correct Answer

Explanation

Q29:

2026: 11 May Shift 2

VA

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Literary Devices

Medium

Match the figures of speech given in List-I with the expressions listed in List-II

	LIST-I (Figures of speech.)		LIST-II (Expressions)
A.	Personification	I.	"The child was a hurricane of emotions."
B.	Oxymoron	II.	"O Death! Where is thy sting?"
C.	Metaphor	III.	"Death lays its icy hands on Kings."
D.	Apostrophe	IV.	"Parting is such a sweet sorrow"

Choose the correct answer from the options given below:

A-III, B-IV, C-I, D-II

A-I, B-II, C-III, D-IV

A-II, B-III, C-IV, D-I

A-IV, B-I, C-II, D-III

Correct Answer

Option 1

Correct Answer

Explanation

Q30:

2026: 11 May Shift 1

VA

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Literary Devices

Medium

Match the Figures of speech given in List-I with their examples in List-II

	LIST-I (Figures of speech)		LIST-II (Examples)
A.	Hyperbole	I.	Dearth dwells in every nook and cranny of the slums.
B.	Simile	II.	The fair, funny, fragile looking waif.
C.	Personification	III.	Malicious words are like bullets that tear through you.
D.	Alliteration	IV.	The husband's cruel desertion broke her heart into smithereens.

Choose the correct answer from the options given below:

A - II, B - I, C - III, D - IV

A - III, B - I, C - IV, D - II

A - IV, B - III, C - I, D - II

A - II, B - IV, C - I, D - III

Correct Answer

Option 3

Correct Answer

Explanation

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