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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 

PROACTIVE

DEFINITION:
Taking action to control a situation rather than responding to it after it has happened.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
LoPilato said the policy aims to be proactive, rather than allowing more violence to take place before regulating the problem.
The Los Angeles Times, 07/20/2026

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. Acumen

Having a bad disposition; surly.

Quickness, accuracy, and keenness of judgment or insight.

Characterized by forcefulness of expression or intensity of emotion or conviction; fervid.

A form of government in which the political authority exercises absolute and centralized control over all aspects of life,


2. Abrogate

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

To abolish, do away with, or annul, especially by authority.

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

Lacking social polish; tactless.


3. Soliloquy

Feeling or showing haughty disdain.

A dramatic or literary form of discourse in which a character talks to himself or herself or reveals his or her thoughts without addressing a listener.

To show servile deference.

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


4. Irony

Clear to the understanding.

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

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.

Tumultuous; stormy.


5. Obsequious

To weaken or destroy the strength or vitality of.

To insert or introduce between other elements or parts.

Full of or exhibiting servile compliance; fawning.

Having a harmful effect; injurious.


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