Long-form Reading Comprehension (長文読解)
Long-form reading carries the most marks. You typically meet two passages: a narrative (a student's experience, a letter, a speech) and an expository passage that may include a graph, table or e-mail. Questions mix Japanese-answer content items with 英問英答, where you write the answer in English.
Core rules
- Read for paragraph function, not for every word. Ask: is this paragraph setting the scene, giving a problem, presenting data, or stating the writer's opinion?
- Follow the discourse markers: however / on the other hand mark contrast; because / so / as a result mark cause; for example marks illustration.
- Resolve 指示語 (it, this, they) by looking at the previous one or two sentences and checking which noun the verb logically applies to.
- For 英問英答, build a full sentence with the correct subject and tense, reusing the question's words.
- For graph items, read the axis labels and units first, then find the claim the passage actually makes.
Worked example
A passage describes a girl who joins a river clean-up with her class. The last line reads: "It changed the way I saw my town." Question: What does "It" refer to? Choices: the town / the clean-up / the river / her school.
"It" is the subject of "changed". The town is what she now sees differently, so it cannot be the thing that changed her view. The river is only the location. The sentences before describe the clean-up, so the clean-up is the answer.
Traps
- Options that are true in real life but not stated in the passage.
- Extreme wording: always, never, all, only, everyone.
- A pronoun answer that fits the nearest noun but breaks the meaning of the verb.
- Copying a whole sentence for 英問英答 instead of shaping an answer to the question.
- Confusing the writer's opinion with a person quoted inside the passage.
- Spending minutes on one unknown word when the sentence still works without it.