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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 

FOOTHOLD

DEFINITION:
A position usable as a base for further advance.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
Growing national anxiety over the impact of massive data centers on communities has found a foothold in Greater Boston in the form of Markley’s Lowell location.
The Boston Herald, 08/10/2026

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. Quota

One who habitually takes advantage of the generosity of others without making any useful return.

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

A prohibition by a government on certain or all trade with a foreign nation

A proportional part or share.


2. Enthusiastic

The act of resting or the state of being at rest.

A disorderly commotion or disturbance.

Having or demonstrating enthusiasm

A treeless area between the icecap and the tree line of Arctic regions, having a permanently frozen subsoil and supporting low-growing vegetation


3. Inference

A grotesque ornamental figure or projection.

To cringe in fear

The act of reasoning from factual knowledge or evidence.

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


4. Guru

A teacher and guide in spiritual and philosophical matters.

Having a backbone or spinal column.

An embankment built to prevent flooding

A weather phenomenon in the Eastern Pacific that is precisely equivalent to a hurricane.


5. Phloem

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

The repetition of the same sounds or of the same kinds of sounds at the beginning of words or in stressed syllables

A poisonous substance, especially a protein, that is produced by living cells or organisms.

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


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