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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. Guru

A teacher and guide in spiritual and philosophical matters.

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

Of, relating to, or occurring in the night

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


2. Jovial

Marked by hearty conviviality and good cheer.

An embankment built to prevent flooding

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

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


3. Typhoon

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

A relationship of mutual benefit or dependence.

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

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


4. Nebula

Self-examination.

Something that is passed down from preceding generations; a tradition.

A diffuse mass of interstellar dust or gas or both, visible as luminous patches or areas of darkness

A movement or procedure involving skill and dexterity.


5. Repose

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

To cringe in fear

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

A very large and destructive wave, generally caused by a tremendous disturbance in the ocean, such as an undersea earthquake or volcanic eruption.


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