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Words in the News

This Week's Word In The News 

PROPOSITION

DEFINITION:
Something offered for consideration or acceptance.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
proposition 10 was considered a landmark policy.
►The Los Angeles Times, 12/15/2025

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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. Mosaic

► The repetition of the same sounds or of the same kinds of sounds at the beginning of words or in stressed syllables

► To grow well or luxuriantly; thrive

► Being without or almost without hope

► A picture or decorative design made by setting small colored pieces, as of stone or tile, into a surface.

2. Inference

► Of or relating to the range of invisible radiation wavelengths from about 4 nanometers, on the border of the x-ray region, to about 380 nanometers, just beyond the violet in the visible spectrum.

► A closed plane figure bounded by three or more line segments.

► The act of reasoning from factual knowledge or evidence.

► Harmful, malevolent, injurious. Harmfully cancerous.

3. Participle

► A form of a verb that in some languages, such as English, can function independently as an adjective.

► One that speaks for, represents, or advocates

► An elevated, comparatively level expanse of land; a tableland.

► Using or marked by the use of few words; terse or concise.

4. Protagonist

► Using or marked by the use of few words; terse or concise.

► The right or privilege of voting; franchise.

► The main character in a drama or other literary work.

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

5. Technique

► A very large and destructive wave, generally caused by a tremendous disturbance in the ocean, such as an undersea earthquake or volcanic eruption.

► The systematic procedure by which a complex or scientific task is accomplished.

► To have a great ambition or ultimate goal

► Forfeiture of something highly valued for the sake of one considered to have a greater value or claim.

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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.