Your package defines these with invented examples. Here they are doing real work inside your four poems — which is what an exam will actually ask about.
| Device | How to spot it | In your poems |
| Simile | Uses like or as … as. | “her words are like pebbles of uncooked rice” (Kentang) · “Machines like ravenous knives” (Albatross) |
| Metaphor | Says one thing is another. No “like” or “as”. | “a fountain of endless chatter” (Leave-Taking) · “her arteries” for the river's channels (Singapore River) |
| Personification | A non-living thing given human traits. | The river as “the old lady” and “her” (Singapore River) · “death rattled the gate” (Leave-Taking) · a country “hungry” who “sucks” (Albatross) |
| Device | How to spot it | In your poems |
| Alliteration | Repeated sounds at the start of nearby words. | “whisking, whirling” (Kentang) — the repeated sound imitates the spinning motion itself |
| Repetition | A word or phrase deliberately repeated. | “tonne / after incessant tonne” (Albatross) — the repetition makes the extraction feel endless |
| Hyperbole | Obvious exaggeration, not meant literally. | “a fountain of endless chatter” (Leave-Taking) — nobody talks endlessly; the exaggeration conveys how alive the boy's company was |
| Onomatopoeia | A word that sounds like what it describes. | “death rattled the gate” (Leave-Taking) — you hear the gate, which makes death's arrival physical |
| Device | What it means | In your poems |
| Imagery | Description that appeals to the senses. | “raw and earthy, not softened by heat” (Kentang) — taste and touch together, so you feel the discomfort of swallowing |
| Tone | The poet's attitude, shown through word choice. | “lachrymose blubber” (Leave-Taking) — an unflattering phrase that makes the adults' grief sound performed |
| First person | Uses I, me, my. The speaker is inside the poem. | Kentang throughout · Albatross only at the very end — “my shame”, which is exactly why that switch matters |
| Third person | Uses he, she, they. | Leave-Taking — the distance lets us judge the adults and the boy side by side |
Irony — saying something that means the opposite of how it sounds. Singapore River praises the operation in admiring surgical language, then leaves you feeling something was lost.
Allusion — a reference to another well-known text. Albatross points to Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, where a dead albatross is worn as inescapable guilt.
Every quotation below is from one of your four poems.