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Common Core State Standard
LS.CCS.4/5/6 Grades 3-12: Students are asked to determine the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words through multiple choice vocabulary quizzes. Quizzes are designed to help students demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships and nuances in words, acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate general academic and domain-specific words, and gather vocabulary knowledge when considering a word or phrase important to comprehension or expression. Students are then asked to find the words within the newspaper and copy the sentence for context to its overall meaning or function in a sentence.
This Week's Word In The News 

DISABILITY

DEFINITION:
A physical, mental, cognitive, or developmental condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain tasks or participate in daily activities.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
The agreement last week between Disability-rights groups and Secretary of State Shirley Weber follows an Oct. 2 ruling by U.S. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim of San Francisco that the current system violates the Americans with Disabilities Act and other laws.
►San Francisco Chronicle, 11/02/2026

Words in the News Quiz
5 High School Words

Click on the correct answer in the quiz below.
Then see if you can find the word in your newspaper -- the print edition, the website or the digital edition and copy the sentence for context. NOTE: High School words are much harder to find!


1. Lugubrious

► A reproductive cell having the haploid number of chromosomes, especially a mature sperm or egg capable of fusing with a gamete of the opposite sex to produce the fertilized egg.

► To modify, as by shortening or simplifying or by skewing the content in a certain manner.

► Of or relating to money

► Mournful, dismal, or gloomy, especially to an exaggerated or ludicrous degree.


2. Totalitarian

► To insert or introduce between other elements or parts.

► A form of government in which the political authority exercises absolute and centralized control over all aspects of life,

► Everyday; commonplace.

► An underlying base or foundation especially for an organization or system.


3. Lexicon

► The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning.

► A stock of terms used in a particular profession, subject, or style; a vocabulary:

► A person unduly fearful or contemptuous of that which is foreign, especially of strangers or foreign peoples.

► A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality


4. Ziggurat

► A temple tower of the ancient Assyrians and Babylonians, having the form of a terraced pyramid of successively receding stories.

► Falling off or shed at a specific season or stage of growth:

► Cheerfully confident; optimistic.

► An extremely distant, and thus old, celestial object whose power output is several thousand times that of our entire galaxy.


5. Feckless

► Cheerfully confident; optimistic.

► An extremely distant, and thus old, celestial object whose power output is several thousand times that of our entire galaxy.

► A circular strand of DNA in bacteria that contains the hereditary information necessary for cell life.

► Lacking purpose or vitality; feeble or ineffective.


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