Are You Ready to Graduate High School...From a Vocabulary Perspective?

Stop the music. Halt the party. Catch that mortarboard you just tossed into the air. It's high school graduation season, when grads receive their newly minted diplomas, aspiring grads get inspired, and the rest of us look on with a self-satisfied smile. But are today's grads really ready? 

At least...from a vocabulary perspective? 

Find out by answering three quick questions (answers below): 

1. What's the difference between a vocation and and avocation? 
2. Do you cite or sight a source when writing a research paper? 
3. What would you describe as blatant, a kid who asks for a snack point blank, or one who smiles and compliments his mother's cookies until she offers? 

Vocation, cite, and blatant are featured in our new "Words for the High School Graduate" vocabulary list, a sampling of vocabulary high school grads should know. Scan through it to see if you're up to high school graduation snuff.

Not sure of all the words on this list? No problem. You still get to keep your diploma. But after the balloons have deflated and you've unwrapped the gifts, use the learn button you'll see on the list's top right corner to add the words you don't know — or the whole list — to your Vocabulary.com play. Or quiz yourself on just the words on this list with its practice activity tab.

P.S. Looking for a little graduation grammar to go with your vocabulary? Here, linguist Neal Whitman answers the question, "Does the school graduate the student or does the student graduate (from) the school?"

Answers: 1. Vocation = what you do for a living. Avocation = work done for pleasure, as in a hobby. 2. Cite is short for citation. You cite a source. Sight is something you see, as in, "You're a sight for sore eyes." 3. Blatant means "obvious," as in the kid who asks for a snack point blank.