Function of Simile: Fiction/Drama Practice Test

Read the following excerpt from an original drama. In this scene, Dr. Sato confronts her research partner, Len, after discovering he altered data to secure a grant.

DR. SATO: You changed the numbers.

LEN: I refined them.

DR. SATO: You lied.

LEN: I protected us.

DR. SATO: You protected your ambition.

LEN: If we lose the funding, the lab dies.

DR. SATO: A lab doesn’t die. It closes. People go home. What dies is trust.

LEN: Trust is a luxury.

DR. SATO: No. Trust is the floor. And you pulled it out like a rug from under a child—quick, cruel, and smiling.

What is the primary function of the simile in Dr. Sato’s final line?

Read the following excerpt from an original drama. In this scene, Nia speaks with her grandmother, Abuela Rosa, after Nia announces she is leaving town despite the family’s expectations.

ABUELA ROSA: You will come back when the noise in your head gets tired.

NIA: The noise is the point. It’s telling me I can’t stay.

ABUELA ROSA: You think leaving makes you brave.

NIA: I think staying makes me disappear.

ABUELA ROSA: You don’t disappear here.

NIA: I do. In this house my name feels like a coat two sizes too small—tight at the shoulders, polite in public, suffocating in private.

What is the primary function of the simile in Nia’s final line?