News Quiz 2024

Traditional end-of-year news quiz for your first lesson of the new year

By ibex73 via Wikimedia Commons [CC BY 4.0]

It’s that time of year again – News Quiz 2024 is here! Continuing the tradition that started with this blog, this annual quiz is back to help you kick off the new year in your classroom with an engaging, language-rich activity.

This year’s quiz follows the same (post-Covid) multiple-choice format, designed to let you quickly cover the questions while leaving time to dive into discussions about the stories and explore new language.

As always, the quiz is full of common lexical chunks and vocabulary your students can learn, practice, and reuse. 

News Quiz 2023

Traditional end-of-year news quiz for the first lesson of the new year

Image by Fulton County Sheriff's Office,
State of Georgia via Wikipedia [Fair Use]

It's time for... News Quiz 2023! Following the annual tradition since the start of this blog, here comes the news quiz some of you have been waiting for.

As in the past three editions, the quiz uses a multiple choice format. This way you can get through the questions quickly and devote more time to discussing the stories and learning some language. As usual, the text is packed with very common lexical chunks (verified with the help of COCA) and other vocabulary items for your students to learn, practise and use. Some of these, such as made headlines, cause controversy and went viral (all from the Intermediate version), make recurring appearances in my news quizzes.

News Quiz 2022: follow up

Activities for reviewing and recycling the language from News Quiz 2022

Image credits: Matt Hrkac [CC BY 2.0];
Heo Manjin | Korea.net [CC BY-SA 2.0];
Number 10 [CC BY-NC-ND 2.0];
Steve Jurvetson [CC BY 2.0]

 I hope the latest edition of the News Quiz provided some learning opportunities for your students and you're ready to do some further language-focused work.

Like in the past two (pandemic) years, the follow-up activities come in different formats. Below you will find drag'n'drop activities on LearningApps, one matching activity on WordWall (Intermediate level only) and 'traditional' worksheets in editable Google Docs. As a lead-in, you can show this BBC News video and ask students which stories mentioned in the video appeared in the News Quiz.

What I saw in the war

 A lesson based on Janine di Giovanni's TED talk

Image source: TED.com [Fair use]

I came across this talk, which is shorter than usual TED talks, while looking for some materials on the topic of war and conflict - in view of the current events. The reactions from the students I've showed it to this week have been: "touching", "impressive" and "outstanding".

News Quiz 2021

Photo by Hello I'm Nik on Unsplash

This blog is alive! And so is the blogger. Yes, as you can see, I've survived the apocalypse and am proud to present the 2021 edition of the traditional News Quiz.

Unlike the previous year, the news stories related to coronavirus (oops, COVID-19) are kept to a minimum. But just like last year, the quiz is available in three formats: Google Slides, Quizizz and a

PDF / editable Google Docs.

News Quiz 2020

Photo by Victor He on Unsplash

Here's the delayed 2020 edition of my traditional news quiz with apologies to my friends and followers. I hope it still arrives in time for your first lesson of the new year.

This year's quiz is heavily influenced by the pandemic, which shouldn't come as a surprise! Still it has a considerable dose of non-Covid related new stories from the world of sports, science and entertainment.

News Quiz 2019 - Follow Up

Image credits: Frankie Fouganthin; Milliped; SounderBruce;
under Creative Commons license [CC BY-SA 4.0]

Activities for reviewing lexis from News Quiz 2019

Some of my followers have already been asking me for follow-up activities, particularly Quizlet sets, for the traditional end-of-year news quiz, which I posted last week. Incidentally, it was the 10th News Quiz I'd posted here, on my blog (you can see all of them HERE), since I first launched the blog at the end of 2010...  by posting News Quiz 2010. So, how's that for a #10yearchallenge? I'm actually surprised I've kept at it for so long!

News Quiz 2018 - Follow Up

Activities for reviewing lexis from News Quiz 2018

Image credits: John Bauld  flic.kr/p/McsiQi [CC BY 2.0];
Alisdare Hickson flic.kr/p/24W89b5 [CC BY-SA 2.0];
NASA [PD image]

I hope you and - your students - liked the end-of-year news quiz, which I posted last week. As always, it is followed up by lots of activities aimed at reviewing and consolidating the language from the quiz, which I share below.

If you haven't seen the news quiz, it's not to late - click HERE

You can preview the activities below or download them in Word format and edit/adapt them as you wish. The key (answers) and teachers' notes are provided at the end of each level.

UPDATE: a Quizlet set for advanced level: quizlet.com/_5wm0we 

News Quiz 2018

Photo by KRIS AUS67 on Flickr [CC BY 2.0]

Although I haven't been a very active blogger this year - but check my posts on the CUP blog -  the traditional end-of-year news quiz is here as always! Focusing on key news stories from 2018 I tried to keep a balance between politics, showbiz and sports. And as usual, it's packed with lots of lexical chunks and other vocabulary items for your students to explore.

News Quiz 2017 - Follow Up

Activities for reviewing the language from News Quiz 2017

Collage made with photos by www.kremlin.ru [CC BY 4.0], 

Beyoncé (@beyonce) on Instagram [fair use],

Alex Fau on Flickr https://flic.kr/p/qKyoQ2 [CC BY 2.0]

I hope you enjoyed the traditional end-of-year news quiz I posted last week. As promised, here's a follow up: lots of activities aimed at reviewing and practising vocabulary (and a bit of grammar) from the quiz. If you haven't seen the news quiz, click HERE.

You can preview the activities below or download them in Word format and edit/adapt them as you wish. This year, the key (answers) and teachers' notes are provided at the end of each level - not as a separate file.

For a suggested sequence of activities, see last year's News Quiz Follow Up - click HERE

Update: Vocabulary from the quiz on Quizlet: https://quizlet.com/leosel/folders/news-quiz-2017/

News Quiz 2017

Image source: Billboard

Not too many celebrity deaths this year, but there is a variety of science, sport, celebrity gossip and, inevitably, some politics thrown in. I've tried to vary the format slightly by including, where possible, two stories on the same topic for example, two discoveries, two pregnancies, two air travel related stories etc. to see if this can facilitate recycling of some key lexis from the quiz - more on that under Eliciting / Recycling in the Teachers' notes.

News quiz 2016 - Follow up

Photo by iphonedigital via Flickr 

flic.kr/p/J6zv2j [CC BY-SA 2.0]

Activities for reviewing the language from News Quiz 2016

Like in previous years, here's the follow-up to last week's news quiz: 13 pages of practice activities and exercises aimed at reviewing and consolidating lexis from the quiz (in 2 levels).

I hope you and students enjoy them as much as you enjoyed the quiz. If you still haven't seen this quiz, it's not to late - click HERE.

Update: Vocabulary from the quiz on Quizlet: https://quizlet.com/leosel/folders/news-quiz-2016

News quiz 2016

Photos by Chatham House [CC BY 2.0], 
Marie Lan-Nguyen [CC BY 2.0], 
wowser [CC BY-BC 2.0] on Flickr

There has been an unusually high number of celebrity deaths this year - so many that I could have built the whole quiz around it! Anyhow, here's my end-of-year offering in its traditional format, focusing on some key news stories of 2016. Like last year, I've tried to keep it light-hearted as much as possible. Politics is still there, but it's fairly evenly balanced by sports, travel and technology news.

News quiz 2015 - Follow up

Activities for reviewing lexis from News Quiz 2015

Photo by Dustpuppy72 via Flickr 

[CC BY-NC-ND 2.0]

Here's the promised follow up to the end-of-year news quiz: five pages of lexis-focused activities aimed at reviewing and consolidating language from the quiz. If you haven't seen the news quiz, click HERE.

You can preview the activities below or download them in Word format and edit/adapt them as you wish. The key (answers) follows below.

Update: Vocabulary from the quiz on Quizlet: https://quizlet.com/_1x0vbs

News quiz 2015

Traditional end-of-year news quiz for the first lesson of the new year

The dress which went viral

To tell the truth, I almost broke the tradition this year when I decided not to publish my annual quiz. The year has been so depressing I simply couldn't think of the news items that wouldn't be about terror and murder. But, at the insistence of friends and colleagues, here's this year's edition of the lexically enriched news quiz, which I've tried to keep light on politics.

10 things you can do with "10 things you didn't know last week"

10 things you didn't know last week is a digest of news snippets published every Friday on the BBC website. You can find it in a section called Magazine Monitor. The items chosen for inclusion tend be offbeat and quirky news - very often to do with science. Each story is linked to its source - on the BBC website or elsewhere on the web.

Below are some ideas on how you can use 10 things you didn't know in class. You will see that all of them require no preparation on the part of the teacher.

News quiz 2014 - Follow up

Activities for reviewing language (vocabulary and some grammar) from News Quiz 2014

Image by DLR  via Wikimedia Commons
[CC BY 3.0 de]

As a follow-up to last week's news quiz, here are seven pages' worth of vocabulary practice and review activities (in 2 levels). Some follow "traditional" format from previous years, others are new, for example, the Intermediate level activities include Netspeak, a web tool I blogged about HERE.

I hope you and students enjoy them as much as you enjoyed the quiz. If you still haven't seen this quiz, click HERE:

News quiz 2014

Traditional lexically-enriched end-of-year news quiz for the first lesson of the new year

By Anthony Quintano via Flickr [CC BY 2.0]

In keeping with the tradition started when this blog was born (4 years ago today), here is my end-of-year news quiz.  As usual, it's available in two levels (advanced and intermediate) and comes complete with a 9-page teachers guide with ideas on how the quiz can be used in class. A word of reminder: the quiz is not meant to test your students' general knowledge but to expand their vocabulary.

Over the years I've begun to feel that every year my quiz contains the same language such as cause controversy, got into hot water, battle with drug addiction, came to an abrupt end to describe politicians' faux pas and celebrity deaths that occur with unwavering regularity every year. So this year, a slew of new lexical chunks make their debut in the quiz: quirky sense of humour, eligible bachelor and ruffle feathers to name but a few. See for yourself.

News Quiz 2013 - Vocabulary

Images by Tim Evanson,  Gene Hunt
& Alex Alishevskikh via Flickr

As usual, as a follow up to the traditional end-of-year news quiz, here are language-focused activities aimed at reviewing and consolidating lexis from quiz. If you haven't seen the news quiz 2013, click HERE

This is how I usually use the quiz with my students.

Please note the quiz and the activities below come in two levels.

End-of-year news quiz 2013

Traditional quiz for your first lesson in 2014

By lasanta.com.ec via Flickr
[CC BY 2.0]

For some reason I had a hard time coming up with news items for this year's quiz. Not that the year was uneventful but somehow there were no sex scandals, jumps from space or viral videos which usually make good questions for the quiz. There were lots of deaths though, which is reflected in the questions, and while we're on the topic I'd like to mention that our field has also lost three notable figures in 2013: Leo Van Lier, Earl Stevick and Dave Willis (see my tribute HERE)