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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. Yacht

► Having or demonstrating enthusiasm

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

► Any of various relatively small sailing or motor-driven vessels used for pleasure cruises or racing.

► An embankment built to prevent flooding


2. Xylem

► Having a buoyant or self-confident air; brisk.

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

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

► A preparation of a weakened or killed pathogen.


3. Alliteration

► Relating to a system of writing, such as that of ancient Egypt, in which pictorial symbols are used to represent meaning or sounds or a combination of meaning and sound.

► An intricate structure of interconnecting passages through which it is difficult to find one’s way; a maze.

► Having no specific pattern, purpose, or objective.

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


4. Marsupial

► Any of various nonplacental mammals, including kangaroos, opossums, bandicoots, and wombats, found principally in Australia and the Americas.

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

► Strikingly unconventional and far-fetched in style or appearance; odd

► A metric unit of length equal to 1,000 meters (0.62 mile).


5. Silhouette

► A drawing consisting of the outline of something, especially a human profile, filled in with a solid color.

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

► One that speaks for, represents, or advocates

► The science and art of using all the forces of a nation to execute approved plans as effectively as possible during peace or war.


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