After getting my report card / I knew it was time to hit the books. Which technique is being used? hyperbole How do you figure?

Answer 1

Let’s look at what a hyperbole is. The root words mean ‘to throw over’ and are related in meaning to ‘That’s over the top.’ For example, if ‘I’ve told you twelve times’ is the truth, ‘I’ve told you a million times’ is a hyperbole. A hyperbole exaggerates or enlarges a claim beyond what is literally true, in this case in order to express the speaker's frustration with not being heard.

‘He hit the books’ is not a hyperbole on its own because it is not an exaggeration of a literal truth. If the person had tapped the books, it would be a hyperbole to say he had hit the books. However, he has done nothing of the sort; he has read the books, studied the material printed in them, that is all. 

Now, I said that ‘He hit the books’ is not a hyperbole on its own. It could be a hyperbole of a metaphor. 

A metaphor is a comparison without the ‘like.’ ‘She came into my heart on the wings of dove,’ is a metaphor. "She crashed into my heart in a chartered 747 blaring 'Ride of the Valkyries'" is a hyperbole of that metaphor.

Since we don’t literally hit or tap books in order to study their contents, ‘He hit the books’ is a metaphor. Is it a hyperbole? I don’t think so, because 'He tapped the books' is not a metaphor that we use. ‘He hit is the books’ is a basic metaphor, not an exaggeration of a metaphor. ‘He hammered his books preparing for the final’ would be a hyperbole.

So, ‘After getting my report card/I knew it was time to hit the books’ is not a hyperbole; it is a simply a metaphor.

Answer 2

In the sentence, " After getting my report card / I knew it was time to hit the books." the figurative language being used is an idiom. Idioms are expressions or phrases that don't make literal sense but have a commonly accepted figurative meaning. "Hitting the books" is commonly used to refer to studying hard, while the literal meaning would imply physically hitting a book.