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. Tranquility
► A movement or procedure involving skill and dexterity.
► The quality or state of being tranquil; serenity.
► To pound, crush, or grind to a powder or dust.
2. Spectrum
► The distribution of energy emitted by a radiant source, arranged in order of wavelengths.
► A weather phenomenon in the Eastern Pacific that is precisely equivalent to a hurricane.
► A conventional, formulaic, and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image.
3. Ellipse
► To move back or away from a limit, point, or mark
► An alteration or change, as in nature, form, or quality.
4. Kilometer
► An embankment built to prevent flooding
► A metric unit of length equal to 1,000 meters (0.62 mile).
► The systematic procedure by which a complex or scientific task is accomplished.
5. Renegade
► A poisonous substance, especially a protein, that is produced by living cells or organisms.
► One who rejects a religion, cause, allegiance, or group for another; a deserter.
► One that speaks for, represents, or advocates
► An unstable, poisonous allotrope of oxygen.
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.