Kanagawa Entrance English

It is for students finishing junior high school who want to enter a Kanagawa prefectural public high school, including those applying from outside the prefecture where the school permits it. It is normally taken in the final year of junior high school. The prefectural board of education publishes the current schedule and eligibility rules on its official site.

Expect a mix of multiple-choice items, short written answers, sentence-ordering tasks, guided and free composition, and a listening section delivered in the exam room. Reading passages range from short dialogues to longer texts with information-retrieval tasks such as notices or schedules. The official body publishes the current paper structure, so confirm the details for your year.

Timing, total marks, and the weighting of English against other subjects are set each year by the prefectural board of education. Rather than rely on second-hand figures, check the official announcement for your application year. In practice, plan your practice so you can finish reading and writing sections with a few minutes left to check answers.

The grammar and vocabulary are within junior high school range, but the paper demands speed and accuracy under time pressure, and the composition and information-retrieval tasks reward organisation rather than memorisation. Students who only study for school tests often find the reading volume and the writing task the hardest parts. Steady practice with past papers narrows that gap.

Retake and reapplication rules, including any second-round recruitment, are determined by the prefectural board of education and vary by year and by school. Some schools fill remaining places through a later recruitment process. Check the official site for the current rules rather than assuming a retake is available.

Start with vocabulary and core grammar, since every section depends on them. Add daily short reading for speed, then listening at natural pace. Introduce sentence-ordering and composition practice once you can build correct sentences reliably. Finish with timed past papers, reviewing errors by cause: unknown word, misread grammar, or slow reading.

Running out of time on the longer reading passages, writing compositions with correct ideas but broken sentence structure, misreading the conditions of a task such as word limits or who is speaking, and losing easy listening marks by not previewing the question. Careless spelling and verb-form errors in short answers also cost points that are easy to avoid.

Do them timed and in one sitting first, so you feel the real pace. Then spend longer reviewing: list every unknown word, identify which question types cost you most, and rewrite weak composition answers. Repeat a paper after a few weeks to check that the fixes stuck. Past papers are the closest available guide to the style of the actual questions.

The Kanagawa Prefectural Board of Education publishes the current application schedule, subjects, selection methods, and past paper materials on its official website. School-specific details such as interview weighting or special selection categories appear in each school's prospectus. Always confirm figures there rather than relying on older or unofficial summaries.