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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 

INCARCERATED

DEFINITION:
Confined in a jail or prison.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is restricting access to rehabilitative programming for incarcerated people as it clamps down on overtime spending before the end of its financial year.
The Los Angeles Times, 06/29/2026

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. Eclectic

Selecting or employing individual elements from a variety of sources, systems, or styles

A picture or decorative design made by setting small colored pieces, as of stone or tile, into a surface.

A preparation of a weakened or killed pathogen.

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


2. Embargo

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

One that is inconvenient, annoying, or vexatious; a bother.

The arrangement of events in time

Exceeding the limits of propriety or good manners; improperly forward or bold


3. Protagonist

The main character in a drama or other literary work.

Forfeiture of something highly valued for the sake of one considered to have a greater value or claim.

A conventional, formulaic, and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image.

One that speaks for, represents, or advocates


4. Participle

One that speaks for, represents, or advocates

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

A form of a verb that in some languages, such as English, can function independently as an adjective.

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


5. Quarantine

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

A fungus, usually of the class Ascomycetes, that grows symbiotically with algae,

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

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


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