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. Phloem
► Inspiring awe, admiration, or wonder
► A proportional part or share.
► Loud, noisy, and lacking in restraint or discipline
2. Quarantine
► The distance that light travels in a vacuum in one year.
► A conventional, formulaic, and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image.
► A state of uncertainty or perplexity.
3. Pulverize
► A state of uncertainty or perplexity.
► A preparation of a weakened or killed pathogen.
► To pound, crush, or grind to a powder or dust.
4. Gargoyle
► An ammunition belt, worn over the shoulder, having loops or pockets for cartridges.
► A grotesque ornamental figure or projection.
► An embankment built to prevent flooding
► Being without or almost without hope
5. Bizarre
► Strikingly unconventional and far-fetched in style or appearance; odd
► An unstable, poisonous allotrope of oxygen.
► Incorrectness of reasoning or belief
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.