Listening Comprehension
What the listening section tests
Nara's public high school English paper builds its listening items on the junior high school Course of Study: short dialogues and monologues about school, family, travel, shopping, and daily plans. You must catch details such as times, prices, and places, understand the speaker's purpose, and choose a response that fits the situation. Questions may ask for a fact, a reason, or an inference.
Core rules
- Preview the question before the recording starts; it tells you which information matters.
- Track contrast and cause markers: but, however, so, because, instead. They often carry the answer.
- Write numbers and proper nouns as you hear them; do not wait until the end.
- Distinguish similar sounds and quantities: thirteen/thirty, fifteen/fifty, a quarter past/quarter to.
- For response items, identify the function first: request, invitation, apology, offer, or opinion.
Worked example
Script: 'Woman: Are you taking the 7:15 bus? Man: I usually take it, but tomorrow I'll take the 7:45 because I have to drop off my sister at school.' Question: Why will the man take the 7:45 bus? Reasoning: 'Usually' describes a habit, not tomorrow. 'But' signals a change, and 'because' gives the reason. The answer is that he must take his sister to school. A choice saying 'He always takes the 7:15 bus' is true in general but does not answer why tomorrow is different.
Traps that cost marks
Choosing an option because it repeats a word from the script; missing a negative such as 'not' or 'don't have to'; confusing a time with a duration; and answering before the second speaker finishes. In picture and response items, eliminate options that are grammatical but socially wrong.