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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 

COERCE

DEFINITION:
To persuade someone forcefully to do something that they are unwilling to do.

FOUND IN THE NEWS:
Lina Kahn, a former chair of the Federal Trade Commission, said that Google was using its “search monopoly to coerce schools” into adopting its AI.
►The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 11/09/2026

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. Plateau

► An embankment built to prevent flooding

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

► 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.

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


2. Parasite

► A disorderly commotion or disturbance.

► Having a buoyant or self-confident air; brisk.

► One who habitually takes advantage of the generosity of others without making any useful return.

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


3. Strategy

► 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 science and art of using all the forces of a nation to execute approved plans as effectively as possible during peace or war.

► The arrangement of events in time

► To take in by elaborate methods of deceit


4. Typhoon

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

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

► A weather phenomenon in the Eastern Pacific that is precisely equivalent to a hurricane.

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


5. Exponent

► Any of various relatively small sailing or motor-driven vessels used for pleasure cruises or racing.

► Something that is passed down from preceding generations; a tradition.

► 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

► One that speaks for, represents, or advocates


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