The Reading Task That Rewards the Wrong Answer
A reading passage in a practice paper describes a Japanese company introducing a four-day week. The passage says the company tried it for six months, that productivity rose slightly, but that customer enquiries handled per staff member fell, and that the company decided to continue the policy anyway because staff turnover dropped sharply. The final line quotes the manager: '数字だけでは測れないものがある' ('there are things numbers alone cannot measure'). A student answers the question 'Why did the company keep the four-day week?' with 'Because productivity increased.' The mark scheme awards 2 marks for identifying the turnover reason and 0 for productivity. The student protests that productivity did rise, so the answer is not wrong.
1. Explain to the student why 'because productivity increased' does not earn the marks, referring to the structure of the passage and the function of the final quotation.
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The student has confused a true statement with the right answer. Both are 'in the passage', but the question asks for the company's reason for continuing, and the passage deliberately separates three things:
- Productivity rose slightly - a stated outcome, but the passage does not say this is why they continued.
- Enquiries per staff member fell - a negative outcome, which actually undercuts a productivity-based justification. If productivity were the reason, this detail would be awkward.
- Staff turnover dropped sharply - presented as the decisive factor, and the one the company acts on.
The final quotation is the signpost. 'There are things numbers alone cannot measure' tells the reader the manager is valuing something other than the productivity figures - retention, morale, loyalty. The phrase 数字だけでは ('by numbers alone') explicitly downgrades the productivity data. A strong answer uses that line as evidence, not decoration.
The exam skill being tested is distinguishing main idea from supporting detail and reading the author's emphasis. 'Productivity increased' is a detail that is true but not load-bearing; the turnover reason is the one the passage is built to deliver. In the exam, the student should ask: which sentence does the writer spend the final line defending? That is the answer the markers want.
2. What does this passage suggest about how Japanese companies are rethinking the meaning of work, and what is one limitation of drawing a broad conclusion from a single passage?
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The passage shows a shift in what counts as a good outcome. The traditional model measures output per worker and hours present; this company is weighing retention and staff wellbeing against a small dip in a productivity measure. The manager's line signals that some goods - loyalty, morale, the ability to keep experienced staff - are not captured by output figures. That connects to wider debates in Japan about long working hours, karoshi (death from overwork), and work-style reform, where the pressure has come from labour shortages as much as from idealism.
It is also notable that the company continued the policy despite a fall in enquiries handled per staff member. That is a real trade-off being accepted, not a win-win story, which makes the passage more interesting than a simple 'four-day week is good' text.
Limitation: this is one company, in one industry, reported in one passage, and the passage gives no figures, no sector, no company size and no time frame beyond six months. Six months is long enough to see a turnover effect begin but not long enough to know whether service quality or customer satisfaction suffers over a year. A single case can illustrate a trend; it cannot establish that Japanese business generally has changed. A careful answer says 'this company' and 'this passage suggests', not 'Japanese companies now believe'.