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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 

VERTEBRAE

DEFINITION:
Each of the series of small bones forming the backbone.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
The photographer with The Washington Post who was attacked by Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank so badly that several vertebrae were broken said Sunday she was increasingly angry that Israel’s military seems to protect settlers more than the Palestinians they threaten.
►Associated Press, 10/19/2026

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. Taxonomy

► Having a harmful effect; injurious.

► A reproductive cell having the haploid number of chromosomes, especially a mature sperm or egg capable of fusing with a gamete of the opposite sex to produce the fertilized egg.

► Division into ordered groups or categories.

► Needless repetition of the same sense in different words; redundancy.


2. Gerrymander

► A sudden manifestation of the essence or meaning of something.

► Shaking and vibration at the surface of the earth resulting from underground movement along a fault plane.

► To endow with the rights of citizenship, especially the right to vote.

► To divide (a geographic area) into voting districts so as to give unfair advantage to one party in elections.


3. Acumen

► Mournful, dismal, or gloomy, especially to an exaggerated or ludicrous degree.

► Either of two points on the celestial sphere at which the ecliptic intersects the celestial equator.

► Quickness, accuracy, and keenness of judgment or insight.

► Interchanged, given, or owed to each other.


4. Notarize

► To certify or attest to (the validity of a signature on a document, for example) as a notary public.

► The art or study of correct spelling according to established usage.

► An underlying base or foundation especially for an organization or system.

► Logical incongruity


5. Feckless

► An underlying base or foundation especially for an organization or system.

► Logical incongruity

► Tumultuous; stormy.

► Lacking purpose or vitality; feeble or ineffective.


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