Words in the News

This Week's Word In The News 

BACKLOT

DEFINITION:
An area behind or adjoining a movie studio containing permanent exterior buildings for outdoor scenes in filmmaking or television productions.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman, who serves the 4th District, makes her way across an empty, unnamed backlot, presenting her case to be the city’s next mayor.
The Los Angeles Times, 05/18/2026

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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. Quarantine

The main character in a drama or other literary work.

Enforced isolation or restriction of free movement imposed to prevent the spread of contagious disease.

The branch of biology that deals with animals and animal life, including the study of the structure, physiology, development, and classification of animals.

To swing indecisively from one course of action or opinion to another.


2. Polygon

To swing indecisively from one course of action or opinion to another.

An alteration or change, as in nature, form, or quality.

Harmful, malevolent, injurious. Harmfully cancerous.

A closed plane figure bounded by three or more line segments.


3. Deduction

Either of two times of the year when the sun is at its greatest distance from the celestial equator.

The distance that light travels in a vacuum in one year.

A dense evergreen forest occupying a tropical region with an annual rainfall of at least 100 inches.

The drawing of a conclusion by reasoning; the act of deducing.


4. Plateau

A diffuse mass of interstellar dust or gas or both, visible as luminous patches or areas of darkness

The supporting and water-conducting tissue of vascular plants, consisting primarily of tracheids and vessels; woody tissue.

The systematic procedure by which a complex or scientific task is accomplished.

An elevated, comparatively level expanse of land; a tableland.


5. Tempo

Using or marked by the use of few words; terse or concise.

To honor the memory of with a ceremony

A characteristic rate or rhythm of activity; a pace

The distribution of energy emitted by a radiant source, arranged in order of wavelengths.


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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.