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.
Words in the News Quiz
5 High 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. Precipitous
► Physics that deals with the relationships and conversions between heat and other forms of energy.
► Attended by favorable circumstances; propitious.
► Extremely rapid, hasty, or abrupt; precipitate.
► Lacking purpose or vitality; feeble or ineffective.
2. Detritus
► The process in cell division by which the nucleus divides.
► A product of disintegration, destruction, or wearing away; debris.
► To proceed completely around:
3. Photosynthesis
► To proceed completely around:
► Feeling or showing haughty disdain.
► The basic unit of currency among participating European Union countries.
4. Tectonic
► To modify, as by shortening or simplifying or by skewing the content in a certain manner.
► A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality
5. Chromosome
► A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality
► To bring under control; conquer.
► Division into ordered groups or categories.
©2026 Boston Herald in Education and Online Publications Inc. and NIEonline.com




