Reading comprehension of prose passages and dialogues
This domain, Reading comprehension of prose passages and dialogues, tests how you understand unseen short prose and conversational exchanges in Japanese. Questions ask for the topic, the speaker's purpose, time, place, and relationships; answers may be selected or written in Japanese. Typical items use N5–N4 structures: です/ます style, past and negative forms, て-form requests, and common conjunctions.
Core reading moves
- Read the sentence ending first: ます/ません/ました/ませんでした tells you tense and polarity.
- Track referents: これ/それ/あれ and この/その/あの point to nearby or previously mentioned nouns; ここ/そこ/あそこ mark place.
- Treat connectives as signposts: しかし and でも signal contrast; だから and それで signal result; そして adds; が can mean "but".
- In dialogue, note who speaks: 山田さんは「…」と言いました marks quoted speech; か at the end marks a question.
- Do not translate every word. Locate the line that answers the question and verify the ending.
Worked example
Passage: 田中さんは毎朝七時に起きて、学校へ行きます。でも、今日は日曜日ですから、学校へ行きません。 Question: Does Tanaka go to school today? Reasoning: 毎朝 shows habit, not today. でも marks contrast. 今日は日曜日ですから gives the reason. The final verb 行きません is negative present. Answer: no, he does not.
Traps
- Choosing an option because it repeats a word from the passage while ignoring ません or ませんでした.
- Confusing は (topic) with が (subject), which changes who is described.
- Missing that から after a clause gives a reason, not "from" a place.
- Reading quoted speech as the writer's own statement.