Japanese Language Skills in EJU Japan and the World
What the domain tests
The Japanese language skills domain of EJU Japan and the World checks whether you can read Japanese texts about Japan and the world and extract their logic. Passages may be expository, argumentative, or data commentary. The exam is not a kanji quiz: it asks you to follow reference, contrast, cause, and the author's qualification.
Core rules
- Map each paragraph to a function: claim, example, concession, or conclusion. Japanese markers such as つまり, たとえば, しかし, したがって, and 一方 signal these moves.
- Resolve こ/そ/あ referents and omitted subjects from the immediate context. Japanese often drops the subject; the predicate ending and connectives tell you who acts.
- Separate fact from opinion and the author's general claim from a quoted counterview. Words like 必ずしも, 主に, 可能性がある limit scope.
- When a passage describes data, match the sentence to the trend, not to a single number. A phrase like 増加傾向にある must cover the stated period.
Worked example
Text: 「日本の人口は減少しているが、東京都の人口は増加している。これは、地方から都市への移動が続いていることを示す。」 Question: What does これ refer to? Reasoning: これ cannot refer only to Tokyo's increase, because the sentence contrasts two trends. The following clause explains the contrast as migration from regions to cities. So これ = the combination: national decline plus Tokyo growth. Trap: choosing 'Tokyo's population is increasing' because it is nearby and familiar. That misses the contrast and the explanatory link.
Traps
- Answering from general knowledge instead of the text.
- Picking an option that repeats a keyword but changes the logical relation, e.g., turns an example into a cause.
- Ignoring scope words: すべて, 必ずしも, 主に.
- Misreading double negation or a rhetorical question.