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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 

VERTEBRAE

DEFINITION:
Each of the series of small bones forming the backbone.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
The photographer with The Washington Post who was attacked by Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank so badly that several vertebrae were broken said Sunday she was increasingly angry that Israel’s military seems to protect settlers more than the Palestinians they threaten.
►Associated Press, 10/19/2026

Words in the News Quiz
5 Middle 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. Boisterous

► To cringe in fear

► To move back or away from a limit, point, or mark

► Loud, noisy, and lacking in restraint or discipline

► To condescend to give or grant


2. Despondent

► Having a buoyant or self-confident air; brisk.

► A rebirth or revival.

► A very large and destructive wave, generally caused by a tremendous disturbance in the ocean, such as an undersea earthquake or volcanic eruption.

► Being without or almost without hope


3. Salmonella

► Any of several rod-shaped bacteria, of the genus Salmonella, that cause food poisoning and other diseases.

► Strikingly unconventional and far-fetched in style or appearance; odd

► The right or privilege of voting; franchise.

► The locus of points for which the sum of the distances from each point to two fixed points is equal


4. Renegade

► A movement or procedure involving skill and dexterity.

► One who rejects a religion, cause, allegiance, or group for another; a deserter.

► To stress or emphasize; intensify

► Conversation between characters in a drama or narrative


5. Vertebrate

► Incorrectness of reasoning or belief

► Having a backbone or spinal column.

► To pound, crush, or grind to a powder or dust.

► The food-conducting tissue of vascular plants, consisting of sieve tubes, fibers, parenchyma, and sclereids.


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