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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 

THRESHOLD

DEFINITION:
A level, point, or value at which something is true.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
Child poverty — an assessment of whether pretax income for households with children falls below the latest poverty threshold — declined more significantly in New Mexico in the last three years, dropping from an estimated rate of 24.2% between 2022 and 2024 to 20.9% from 2023 to 2025.
►The Albuquerque Journal, 09/28/2026

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. Ziggurat

► A temple tower of the ancient Assyrians and Babylonians, having the form of a terraced pyramid of successively receding stories.

► Having a harmful effect; injurious.

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

► To modify, as by shortening or simplifying or by skewing the content in a certain manner.


2. Plasma

► The clear, yellowish fluid portion of blood, lymph, or intramuscular fluid in which cells are suspended.

► To seize another’s place, authority, or possession wrongfully.

► Architectural.

► Everyday; commonplace.


3. Acumen

► Architectural.

► Everyday; commonplace.

► The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning.

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


4. Nonsectarian

► Falling off or shed at a specific season or stage of growth:

► Not limited to or associated with a particular religious denomination.

► The lowest point

► Of or relating to money


5. Paradigm

► A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality

► A plane curve formed by the intersection of a right circular cone and a plane parallel to an element of the cone.

► The side of a right triangle opposite the right angle.

► Having one’s true identity concealed.


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