Kumamoto Entrance English common mistakes
Kumamoto Entrance English · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Reading each passage sentence by sentence and translating it into Japanese before answering, so the last paragraph is never reached within the time limit and global questions are answered from the first two paragraphs only.
School instruction conditions students to treat every unknown structure as a translation exercise; under exam time pressure this bottom-up habit consumes the whole allotment on the opening passage.
What to do instead
Practise a two-pass routine: first skim for the topic sentence of each paragraph and the overall structure (problem-solution, chronology, comparison), answer main-idea and tone items, then return to detail items with line references. Time each passage at 1.2 times the real allotment so the real exam feels slow.
Choosing an answer that is true in the passage but does not answer the question asked, for example picking a stated fact when the item asks for the writer's purpose or the reason for a change.
Candidates match surface words between the stem and the passage instead of reading the interrogative carefully; distractors are deliberately built from genuine passage content.
What to do instead
Before looking at the options, underline the question word and predict the answer type (reason, contrast, attitude, inference). Eliminate any option that answers a different question, even if it is factually correct, and write one word next to each rejected option naming its flaw.
Leaving a verb in its base form after a third-person singular subject or inside a subordinate clause where tense agreement is required, producing sentences like 'He go to school every day' or 'She said she is busy yesterday'.
Japanese has no subject-verb agreement and marks tense once per clause, often at the end, so agreement and backshift are invisible in the learner's mental model of the sentence.
What to do instead
Do a mechanical verb audit on every written sentence: locate the subject, check person and number, then check that every clause's tense sits correctly relative to the main verb. Drill reported speech and time-clause rules (no future after 'when' or 'if') as fixed patterns rather than as translation.
Treating all prepositions and articles as interchangeable, writing 'I went to the school by foot' or 'She is good in math', and choosing the wrong preposition in cloze items.
Japanese particles map only loosely onto English prepositions and there is no article system, so learners translate particles one-to-one and never acquire collocational chunks.
What to do instead
Memorise prepositions inside whole phrases and record them in a collocation notebook by noun or adjective ('good at', 'interested in', 'on foot', 'responsible for'), reviewing ten per day. For cloze items, decide the required meaning relation first (time, place, manner, instrument) and only then select the preposition.
Mistaking near-synonyms with different grammatical behaviour or register, such as choosing 'say' where 'tell' is required, 'borrow' for 'lend', or 'high' for 'tall', and choosing a word that fits the meaning but not the part of speech.
Bilingual vocabulary lists give one Japanese gloss for several English words, hiding differences in transitivity, collocation, and formality.
What to do instead
Build vocabulary entries with a pattern line, not just a gloss: 'tell + person + thing', 'lend + thing + to + person', 'tall for people and buildings, high for mountains and prices'. When answering, check the grammar slot first (does it need a noun, verb, or adjective?) and only then the meaning.
Writing a composition that opens with a long personal anecdote, never states a position, and closes with 'In conclusion, I think so' that adds no content, while the prompt asked for an opinion supported by reasons.
Candidates plan in Japanese and translate, which pushes them toward narrative openings and vague closings; they also lack a stored essay frame to fall back on under time pressure.
What to do instead
Use a fixed four-part frame: state the position in the first sentence, give two reasons each with one supporting example, acknowledge one counterpoint briefly, restate the position with a new implication. Draft the frame in English in two minutes before writing and check the conclusion contains no new idea and no repetition of the opening sentence.
Producing long run-on sentences joined by commas, with pronouns whose referent is unclear and with no paragraph breaks across a 120-word answer.
Japanese allows long sentences with clause chaining and omits subjects freely; direct translation carries both features into English, where they read as errors rather than style.
What to do instead
Cap sentences at about twenty words and one main clause plus one subordinate clause. After drafting, split every sentence containing more than two commas, insert an explicit subject wherever the actor changes, and start a new paragraph for each new reason.
Answering listening items from a single keyword heard early in the track, ignoring the correction or negation that comes later ('I was going to, but actually...'), and failing to note numbers, times, and days that are revised mid-conversation.
Processing is word-by-word and working memory is saturated, so the first content word is treated as the answer; Japanese listening habits also underweight sentence-final negation and contrast markers.
What to do instead
Train prediction before playback: read the question and options, decide what information type is needed, and listen for it. Take abbreviated notes on a grid of who, what, when, where, and mark revisions with arrows. Drill contrast and negation markers (but, actually, instead, not until, only if) as listening targets in their own right.
Translating Japanese sentences into English with word-for-word correspondence, keeping Japanese word order and producing sentences such as 'I like the place where is quiet' or omitting the subject entirely because Japanese allows it.
The source sentence's structure dominates the production process; learners have not automated the English requirement that every finite clause has an explicit subject and that relative clauses need a relative pronoun functioning as subject or object.
What to do instead
Translate in two stages: first rewrite the Japanese sentence in plain, short Japanese to expose the core proposition, then build the English around a subject-verb-object spine and attach modifiers after the noun. Always supply 'it' or 'there' where English requires a dummy subject, and reread for missing subjects.
Writing a summary that copies whole sentences from the source, keeps the original order and proportion, and includes examples while omitting the main claim, or exceeds the word limit by counting only content words.
Candidates equate summary with selection rather than compression and have not practised identifying the thesis versus supporting detail; word counting is unreliable under pressure.
What to do instead
Apply a three-step method: mark the thesis and one key support per paragraph, close the source, write the summary from the marks in one or two sentences per paragraph, then reopen and check no phrase of four or more words is copied. Count every word including articles and prepositions, and leave a two-word buffer under the limit.