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. Contradiction
► Having unlimited or universal power, authority, or force; all-powerful.
► Vacuously, smugly, and unconsciously foolish.
► Having a harmful effect; injurious.
2. Vortex
► A place or situation regarded as drawing into its center all that surrounds it.
► An advocate of the extension of political voting rights, especially to women.
3. Nanotechnology
► A stock of terms used in a particular profession, subject, or style; a vocabulary:
► Impossible to dispute; unquestionable
► Lacking serious purpose or occupation; idle.
4. Hegemony
► Falling off or shed at a specific season or stage of growth:
► The predominant influence, as of a state, region, or group, over another or others.
► Interchanged, given, or owed to each other.
► To weaken or destroy the strength or vitality of.
5. Bellicose
► Mournful, dismal, or gloomy, especially to an exaggerated or ludicrous degree.
► Eating and drinking in moderation.
► Warlike in manner or temperament; pugnacious.
► Belonging to the period before a war, especially the American Civil War.
©2026 Boston Herald in Education and Online Publications Inc. and NIEonline.com




