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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 

BACKLOT

DEFINITION:
An area behind or adjoining a movie studio containing permanent exterior buildings for outdoor scenes in filmmaking or television productions.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman, who serves the 4th District, makes her way across an empty, unnamed backlot, presenting her case to be the city’s next mayor.
The Los Angeles Times, 05/18/2026

Words in the News Quiz
5 Middle 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. Symbiosis

To abstain from or act together in abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with as an expression of protest or disfavor or as a means of coercion

A relationship of mutual benefit or dependence.

To pound, crush, or grind to a powder or dust.

A diffuse mass of interstellar dust or gas or both, visible as luminous patches or areas of darkness


2. Tranquility

Consuming or eager to consume great amounts of food; ravenous.

One that takes in everything available, as with the mind.

The quality or state of being tranquil; serenity.

Self-examination.


3. Sect

A cult or religious movement, a group sharing particular (often unorthodox) political and/or religious beliefs.

Having a backbone or spinal column.

A treeless area between the icecap and the tree line of Arctic regions, having a permanently frozen subsoil and supporting low-growing vegetation

To proclaim publicly


4. Hieroglyphic

Relating to a system of writing, such as that of ancient Egypt, in which pictorial symbols are used to represent meaning or sounds or a combination of meaning and sound.

The supporting and water-conducting tissue of vascular plants, consisting primarily of tracheids and vessels; woody tissue.

The food-conducting tissue of vascular plants, consisting of sieve tubes, fibers, parenchyma, and sclereids.

To move in waves or with a smooth, wavelike motion.


5. Deduction

A member of an irregular, usually indigenous military or paramilitary unit operating in small bands in occupied territory to harass and undermine the enemy

The drawing of a conclusion by reasoning; the act of deducing.

A fungus, usually of the class Ascomycetes, that grows symbiotically with algae,

Conversation between characters in a drama or narrative


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