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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 

DISCERN

DEFINITION:
To see, recognize, or understand something that is not clear.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
As you can discern, we have a rather complex group of vehicle violations that need to be cured.
►The Las Vegas Review-Journal, 10/26/2026

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. Vacillate

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

► Being without or almost without hope

► A proportional part or share.

► A state of uncertainty or perplexity.


2. Vaccine

► A state of uncertainty or perplexity.

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

► A preparation of a weakened or killed pathogen.

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


3. Formidable

► Inspiring awe, admiration, or wonder

► In a deplorable state of distress or misfortune; miserable.

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

► One that takes in everything available, as with the mind.


4. Jovial

► Grossly offensive to decency or morality.

► Marked by hearty conviviality and good cheer.

► Consuming or eager to consume great amounts of food; ravenous.

► The pattern produced on a photosensitive medium that has been exposed by holography and then photographically developed.


5. Mosaic

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

► One thing conceived as representing another; a symbol.

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

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


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