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. Protagonist
► One that speaks for, represents, or advocates
► The main character in a drama or other literary work.
► An embankment built to prevent flooding
2. Ozone
► An unstable, poisonous allotrope of oxygen.
► One that takes in everything available, as with the mind.
► The distribution of energy emitted by a radiant source, arranged in order of wavelengths.
3. Vacillate
► To rejoice greatly; be jubilant or triumphant
► To swing indecisively from one course of action or opinion to another.
► Being without or almost without hope
► A state of uncertainty or perplexity.
4. Aspire
► A disorderly commotion or disturbance.
► To have a great ambition or ultimate goal
► In a deplorable state of distress or misfortune; miserable.
► To take in by elaborate methods of deceit
5. Suffrage
► The right or privilege of voting; franchise.
► A conventional, formulaic, and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image.
► A fungus, usually of the class Ascomycetes, that grows symbiotically with algae,
► Having a buoyant or self-confident air; brisk.
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.