Kyoto Entrance English cheat sheet

Identify the passage type first: expository text explains a mechanism or state of affairs; argumentative text advances a claim and defends it. The question type follows from the type - expository questions ask what/how, argumentative questions ask whether/why-opponent-is-wrong.

Locate the thesis in argumentative prose: it is usually the sentence that the rest of the paragraph supports, often marked by 'therefore', 'I argue', 'it is not the case that', or by contrast with a preceding view.

Distinguish claim from evidence: a claim is contestable and general; evidence is specific (data, example, quotation, anecdote). A question asking 'the author cites X in order to' is answered by the claim X supports, not by X's content.

Signal words for concession and rebuttal: 'admittedly', 'granted', 'it is true that' introduce the opposing view; 'however', 'nevertheless', 'even so' introduce the author's return. The author's position is what follows the concession, not the concession itself.

Scope words decide answer validity: 'all', 'only', 'primarily', 'mainly', 'some', 'most'. An option that is true but broader or narrower than the passage's scope is wrong.

Pronoun and reference resolution: when asked what 'this' or 'such a view' refers to, read the preceding sentence, not the following one; the antecedent is usually the nearest preceding noun phrase that fits grammatically and semantically.

Inference questions ('it can be inferred') require exactly one logical step from stated text; an option requiring outside knowledge or two chained assumptions is out of scope.

For 'which best expresses the main idea', reject options that are (a) true but subordinate details, (b) too extreme relative to the passage's hedges ('may', 'tends to'), or (c) about the topic but not the author's point about the topic.

Shakudoku asks what the English sentence means, not how to render it word-for-word. Produce a Japanese paraphrase that a Japanese reader would accept as the same claim, then check it against the original for added or dropped content.

Resolve English syntax before writing Japanese: find the finite verb and its subject, bracket subordinate clauses, then reorder into Japanese SOV with the main predicate last. English postmodification (relative clauses, participles) becomes Japanese premodification.

English articles and number are often not translated: 'a dog' and 'dogs' may both become 犬. But definiteness matters for reference - 'the government' vs 'a government' changes what the Japanese must make explicit.

Passive voice: English passives frequently become Japanese active or intransitive constructions, or ～される／～によって. Choose based on whether the agent matters; do not mechanically produce ～される for every passive.

Participial and appositive constructions carry information that Japanese must unpack into a clause: 'The plan, rejected by the council, was revised' → その計画は議会に否決されたため修正された.

Modal and hedge strength must be preserved: 'may' → ～かもしれない, 'must' → ～にちがいない／ねばならない, 'should' → ～すべきだ, 'can' → ～しうる. Upgrading a hedge to an assertion is a translation error.

Negative and comparative traps: 'not all X are Y' ≠ 'all X are not Y' (部分否定 vs 全体否定); 'no less than' = ～ほども多い; 'not A but B' = AではなくB; 'A rather than B' = BではなくA.

Technical terms with established Japanese equivalents should use them (e.g., 仮説, 遺伝子, 需要と供給); invented katakana for terms that already have standard translations reads as mistranslation.

Japanese sentences are clause-chained: identify the final predicate first, then map each ～て／～が／～ので／～がゆえに clause to an English finite clause, participial phrase, or prepositional phrase.

Japanese null subjects must be supplied in English. Decide the subject from context and keep it consistent; English requires an explicit subject in every finite clause except imperatives.

Topic marker は vs subject marker が: は often signals given information (→ definite article, subject position, or 'as for'), while が often introduces new information (→ indefinite article or cleft/focus structure).

Nominalization is denser in Japanese (～こと, ～という事実, ～の可能性). English prefers verbs and clauses: 彼が来たという事実 → 'the fact that he came', or simply 'that he came'.

Tense and aspect: Japanese ～ている maps to present progressive or present perfect depending on whether the state is ongoing or resultant; ～た is past or perfect. Choose from context, not from the form alone.

Structural rewriting tasks (rewrite using a given word, combine sentences, change voice) preserve propositional content while changing form. Check that the required word appears, the meaning is unchanged, and grammatical agreement holds.

Japanese connectors map to specific English discourse markers: しかし→however, したがって→therefore, ところが→yet/however (contrast of fact), なぜなら→because, つまり→that is/in other words. Match the logical relation, not the dictionary gloss.

Avoid translationese: 'It is said that...' for ～と言われている is fine, but 'It is thought by me that' for 私は～と考える is not. Prefer the natural English construction over a mirror of Japanese word order.

A defensible thesis is specific and arguable: it names a position plus a reason ('X should do Y because Z'), not a topic ('This essay is about X'). A thesis that no reasonable person could deny is a summary, not an argument.

Paragraph unity: one controlling idea per paragraph, stated in a topic sentence, supported by evidence, and closed by a sentence that ties back to the thesis. A paragraph with two unrelated ideas should be split.

Cohesion devices: pronoun reference, lexical repetition of key terms, and transitions that encode the actual relation (addition: moreover; contrast: however; cause: consequently; example: for instance). Misused transitions are a common penalty.

Counterargument and rebuttal raise the score: state the strongest opposing view fairly, then show its limit or why the reason outweighs it. Ignoring the counterargument weakens an argumentative essay.

Register: avoid contractions, slang, and first-person anecdote in formal academic prose unless the prompt invites personal narrative; use 'one' or recast to avoid awkward generic 'you'.

Sentence variety: mix simple, compound, and complex sentences. Run-ons (comma splice, fused sentences) and fragments are the most frequent mechanical errors in timed essays.

Evidence must be integrated, not dropped: introduce the source, present it, then interpret it ('This suggests that...'). An uninterpreted quotation does not support a claim.

Timed-essay planning: allocate roughly 10% of time to planning (thesis + 3 supporting points), 75% to drafting, 15% to revision checking agreement, articles, tense consistency, and the thesis-sentence link.

Distinguish confusable pairs: affect (verb) / effect (noun); lie (recline, intransitive) / lay (put, transitive); imply (speaker) / infer (listener); comprise (whole comprises parts) / compose (parts compose whole).

Idiom + preposition is fixed and tested: depend on, consist of, result in (cause) vs result from (cause), account for, comply with, object to, be subject to, in contrast to, on the grounds that.

Subject-verb agreement traps: intervening prepositional phrases do not change the head noun ('The list of items is'); 'each/every/either/neither' take singular; 'none' and collective nouns vary by sense; 'the number of' singular vs 'a number of' plural.

Parallelism: items joined by and/or/but, and comparisons with 'than' or 'as...as', must be structurally parallel. 'She likes reading, writing, and to hike' is faulty; make all three gerunds or all three infinitives.

Dangling and misplaced modifiers: an introductory participial phrase modifies the subject of the main clause. 'Walking home, the rain began' is wrong because the rain was not walking.

Conditional and subjunctive forms: 'If I were' (hypothetical), 'were to' (remote future), 'had I known' (inverted third conditional), and mandative subjunctive after demand/insist/require ('that he be present').

Countability and articles: 'information', 'advice', 'research', 'equipment' are uncountable (no plural, no 'an'); abstract nouns take zero article in generic use ('Honesty is...'), but 'the' with specified reference.

Vocabulary in context: choose the option that fits both the collocation and the register of the sentence. A synonym that is semantically close but collocationally wrong (e.g., 'do a mistake' vs 'make a mistake') is the distractor.

Predict from the question stem before audio: knowing whether you need a number, a reason, or a speaker's attitude lets you filter the stream and ignore irrelevant detail.

Signal the structure of a lecture: 'first', 'next', 'finally' mark main points; 'however', 'on the other hand' mark contrast; 'that is', 'in other words' mark restatement, which often paraphrases the answer.

Numbers, dates, and proper nouns are frequent answer targets and are easily confused: -teen vs -ty (fifteen/fifty), ordinals, and spelled-out names. Note them on first hearing; the audio is usually played once.

Distinguish stated fact from speaker stance: 'The data suggest...' is a hedge, not a claim of proof; tone and modal verbs signal the speaker's confidence.

In conversation tasks, the answer is often implied by the second speaker's response rather than stated: 'Do you have the report?' 'I left it on your desk' implies 'No, but it is available.'

Negative and exception questions ('Which is NOT mentioned?') require tracking all options; mark each option as heard/not heard as the audio proceeds rather than recalling afterward.

Idiomatic and reduced speech: 'gonna', 'wanna', 'kinda', 'a lot of' → 'a lotta', and elided consonants in connected speech. Train recognition of these forms rather than expecting citation pronunciation.

Note-taking: record content words and logical arrows (→ cause, ≠ contrast), not full sentences; the notes are for reconstructing relations, not for transcription.

When two passages address one topic, classify the relation first: agreement, disagreement on fact, disagreement on interpretation, or different scope (one narrower, one broader). The summary must state the relation, not just the contents.

Build a comparison matrix: rows = issues or sub-questions, columns = Passage A / Passage B. Fill cells with each passage's position; empty cells reveal a passage that is silent on an issue, which is itself summarizable.

Separate shared ground from points of contention. A good integrated summary opens with what both passages accept, then states where and why they diverge.

Attribute claims to sources: 'Passage A argues... whereas Passage B contends...'. Losing attribution - presenting one author's claim as the combined view - is the most common integration error.

Distinguish evidence from conclusion in each passage; if A and B reach the same conclusion from different evidence, the summary must say so, since the difference in support matters.

Summary constraints: a summary omits examples and rhetorical flourishes but retains the main claim of each passage plus the relation between them. Length limits are hard limits; exceeding them is penalized.

For information-organization tasks (table completion, ordering, categorization), use the passage's own categories rather than inventing new ones, and check that every item is placed exactly once unless the task allows overlap.

Detect loaded language and framing: 'so-called', 'alleged', scare quotes, and evaluative adjectives signal the author's stance toward a cited view; a neutral summary must report that stance rather than adopt it.