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Words in the News

This Week's Word In The News 

IMPROBABLE

DEFINITION:
Unlikely to take place under the circumstances or in the usual course of events.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
That’s where Democratic candidates are trying to accomplish the improbable by flipping a pair of Trump-friendly congressional seats and carving into Republicans’ narrow 218 to 213 majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The Key West Citizen-Herald, 03/31/2025

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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. Sacrifice

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

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

A relationship of mutual benefit or dependence.

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


2. Metaphor

To move back or away from a limit, point, or mark

One thing conceived as representing another; a symbol.

An unstable, poisonous allotrope of oxygen.

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


3. Marsupial

A metric unit of length equal to 1,000 meters (0.62 mile).

Any of various nonplacental mammals, including kangaroos, opossums, bandicoots, and wombats, found principally in Australia and the Americas.

A prohibition by a government on certain or all trade with a foreign nation

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


4. Introspection

The distance that light travels in a vacuum in one year.

The right or privilege of voting; franchise.

Self-examination.

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


5. Tsunami

Having no specific pattern, purpose, or objective.

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

A person authorized to act as representative for another; a deputy.

Either of two times of the year when the sun is at its greatest distance from the celestial equator.


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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.