Nara Public High School Entrance Examination - Science case studies

The Nara Prefecture Public High School Admission Examination in Science (奈良県公立高等学校入学者選抜 理科) is the science component of the academic achievement test used by Nara's prefectural public high schools to select entrants. It is taken by students completing compulsory education who are applying to prefectural high schools, including those applying through special quotas and recommended places where the school requires the achievement test. The paper draws on the full three-year lower-secondary science curriculum, split roughly evenly across physics, chemistry, biology and earth science, with a further slice testing how well you design, read and reason about experiments. Expect a mixture of multiple choice, short written answers, calculations, explanations in your own words, and questions built around tables and graphs. Because it is a selection test, it rewards accuracy and clear expression over rote recall: you must be able to explain why a result happens, not just name it. Preparation means working through each domain systematically, redoing school experiments with attention to method and control variables, practising calculation speed with units, and writing short explanations that a marker can follow in one reading. Topics on this exam: Physics: motion and forces, Physics: energy, waves, and electricity, Chemistry: substances and chemical changes, Chemistry: atoms, molecules, ions, and chemical equations, Biology: living things and their environments, Biology: life processes and reproduction, Earth science: geology, weather, and astronomy, and Scientific inquiry, experiments, and data interpretation. The Nara Public High School Entrance Examination - Science case studies are 5 cases and about 85 words.