Akita Entrance English common mistakes
Akita Entrance English · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
On listening tasks, candidates start writing the first number or name they hear and stop listening, so they miss a correction such as "actually, make it 4:30" or a spelled-out surname given letter by letter.
Akita listening passages often embed self-corrections and letter-by-letter spelling, and candidates treat the first plausible value as final because they are still writing when the correction arrives.
What to do instead
Train with short audio that deliberately contains one self-correction per item. Practise keeping the pen still until the speaker finishes the turn, then writing. Drill surname spelling by writing only the letters, not the whole word, and checking against a partner's list.
Candidates answer detail questions from a single keyword match in the passage without checking whether the sentence is negated, hedged, or attributed to someone else.
Under time pressure, scanning for a word and copying the surrounding phrase feels efficient, but Akita reading items frequently place the keyword in a distractor sentence with "not", "unlikely", or reported speech.
What to do instead
Do a two-pass routine: first read the question stem and predict the answer type, then locate the sentence and read the full clause plus the sentence before it. Underline negation and reporting verbs (says, claims, is said to) before choosing.
Candidates choose a vocabulary option that fits the sentence's meaning roughly but ignores the grammatical pattern the word requires, such as a verb needing a specific preposition or a noun needing a countable form.
Learners often memorise a word with one Japanese gloss and never learn its collocations, so "discuss about" or "participate to" feels correct because the meaning matches.
What to do instead
Build a collocation log: for each new word record the preposition, the countable/uncountable status, and one full example sentence. Before answering, say the whole sentence aloud with the option inserted and check the pattern, not just the meaning.
In situational response items, candidates pick the grammatically correct reply rather than the one that fits the register and the social relationship, for example answering a teacher's offer with an over-casual "Sure, no problem".
Candidates prepare for grammar accuracy and treat politeness as decoration, but these items turn on whether the response matches the setting, the speaker's status, and the function (apology, refusal, request).
What to do instead
Classify each prompt by function and by relationship before reading the options, then eliminate any option that is too casual, too direct, or too formal for that pairing. Keep a short list of standard formulas for apologising, declining, and offering, and rehearse them in paired role-play.
On sentence-reordering items, candidates build the sentence word by word from the front, locking in an early choice that later makes the rest ungrammatical.
Front-to-back construction gives no feedback until the end, and Japanese-influenced word order pushes verbs and modifiers into positions English does not allow.
What to do instead
Work backwards from the fixed final chunk and from any obvious phrase units (prepositional phrase, relative clause, infinitive of purpose). Write candidate chunks on slips and physically arrange them, then read the finished sentence aloud to test the rhythm and the grammar.
On sentence transformation, candidates change the words but keep the original tense, aspect, or subject, producing a transformed sentence that no longer means the same thing.
The instruction says "rewrite with the same meaning", and candidates focus on the target structure (passive, indirect question, comparative) while forgetting that tense and agent must be preserved.
What to do instead
After each transformation, run a three-point check: same tense, same subject/agent, same degree of certainty. Compare the original and the rewrite side by side and ask whether a reader would infer any change in time or responsibility.
In guided writing, candidates answer the prompt's bullet points one by one as separate short sentences, producing a list rather than a connected paragraph with a clear opening and closing.
Bullet points in the prompt invite point-by-point answering, and candidates have not practised linking devices or paragraph framing under exam timing.
What to do instead
Before writing, sketch a three-part frame: one sentence setting the situation, two or three body sentences grouped by idea (not by bullet), one sentence closing with a reason or request. Draft with a fixed set of connectors (however, therefore, for this reason) and check that each bullet is covered inside the frame rather than as its own sentence.
On information-transfer tasks, candidates copy figures from the table or notice into the answer without converting units, matching the row label, or checking whether the question asks for a total, a difference, or a single value.
The data looks simple, so candidates read across quickly and grab the nearest number, missing that the table is in hundreds, that two rows must be combined, or that the question asks for a change over time.
What to do instead
Annotate the question first: circle whether it asks for total, difference, or one value, and note the unit. Then trace the exact row and column with a finger or ruler, write the arithmetic, and sanity-check the answer against the table's scale before transferring it.
Candidates spend too long on one difficult reading or reordering item and then rush the final section, leaving writing tasks unfinished or unproofread.
Section timing is rarely rehearsed; candidates treat each item as equally weighted and have no rule for when to abandon a question.
What to do instead
Do two full timed mocks and record the minute at which each section should end. Set a personal cut-off (for example, 90 seconds on any single item) and practise skipping, marking, and returning. Reserve the last five minutes of the writing section for checking verb endings, articles, and spelling only.
Candidates misread the task instruction itself, for example writing a letter when an email is required, giving an opinion when the prompt asks for a description, or answering in Japanese because the prompt is in Japanese.
Instructions are read once at speed and the candidate's prepared template takes over, so the genre, audience, and required content are never explicitly identified.
What to do instead
Make a habit of underlining three things in every instruction: the genre (email, notice, essay), the audience (friend, teacher, club members), and the exact content required. State them in one line at the top of the answer space before writing, and check the finished answer against that line.