WAEC Literature in English 2010 Objective — Question 27

[Passage] "Here in the station it is in no way different save that the city is busy in its snow: But the old men cling to their seats as though they were symbolic and could not be given up. Now and then they sleep, their grey old heads resting with painful awkwardness on the backs of the benches. Also, they are not at rest, for an hour they may sleep in the gasping exhaustion of the ill-nourished and aged who have to walk at night. Then a policeman comes by on his rounds and nudges them upright. 'You can't sleep here', he growls. A strange thing then begins. An old man is difficult to wake. One man after a slight lurch, does not move at all, he sleeps on steadily. Once in a while, one of the sleepers will not wake; he will have had his wish to die in the great droning centre of the hive rather than in some lonely room fulfilled." Read the passage and answer questions 26-30. "...On the backs of the benches" illustrates

• A. A. synecdoche
• B. B. epithet
• C. C. assonance
• D. D. personificationCorrect