Choose the correct figure of speech used in the following sentence:
During the Durga Puja week, Papa must have walked a thousand kilometres from pandal to pandal with my little sister on his shoulders.
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → Hyperbole
Nobody can walk “a thousand kilometres” between the pandals of one town in a week. The speaker only means that Papa walked a very long way.
| Figure | What it is | Example |
|---|---|---|
| (1) Hyperbole (answer) | a big exaggeration made for effect | The queue outside the ration shop was a mile long. |
| (2) Metaphor | a hidden comparison: it says one thing is another, without “like” or “as” | On results day, our house was a pressure cooker. |
| (3) Litotes | an understatement: “not” or “no” before the opposite, to say something positive | Scoring ninety in physics is not a bad result at all. |
| (4) Synecdoche | a part stands for the whole (or the whole for a part) | Bhaiya proudly showed his friends his new wheels, a second-hand Maruti. |