Oita Public High School Entrance Examination - English common mistakes
Oita Public High School Entrance Examination - English · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
In the listening section, students copy down the first number or time they hear (for example writing "7:15" when the announcement later corrects it to "7:50"), instead of waiting for the final confirmed figure.
Oita listening scripts often build in a self-correction or a comparison ("the first train leaves at 7:15, but we'll take the 7:50 because..."). Students who write during the first mention stop listening and miss the correction, because they treat dictation as the goal rather than comprehension.
What to do instead
Train a two-pass habit: on the first hearing, mark only the topic and speaker roles; write numbers, times, and prices only after the speaker finishes the relevant turn. Practise with scripts containing a deliberate self-correction so students learn the cue phrases ("actually", "no, wait", "let me check again").
Students answer a listening question from a single keyword match (hearing "library" and choosing the library option) without tracking who is speaking or what each speaker decides to do.
School-entrance listening items frequently contrast two speakers' preferences, and the correct answer is the final decision, not the first suggestion. Keyword matching feels efficient under time pressure and gives false confidence.
What to do instead
Have students annotate speakers as A and B and draw an arrow to the final decision word ("OK, let's...", "I'll..."). Do short drills where the distractor option is the first-mentioned idea, so students learn that first mention is usually a trap.
On short dialogue reading items, students choose an answer that is true in real life or personally plausible rather than one supported by the exact line in the passage.
The passages are short and familiar (school, club, shopping), so students fill gaps from background knowledge. Entrance exams deliberately include an option that is generally true but not stated in the text.
What to do instead
Require students to underline the sentence that proves the answer before marking the choice, and to write the line number beside the option. If no line can be underlined, the option is wrong by definition. Practise with items containing one 'true but not stated' distractor.
Students misread the question focus in dialogue items - answering 'what does Yuki want to do?' with what her friend wants, or answering 'why' with a 'what' detail.
Japanese students often read the passage carefully but skim the question stem, and pronoun/role tracking across turns (he/she/they referring back) is a common weak point.
What to do instead
Make students circle the question word (who/what/why/how) and the named person before reading the options. Then have them rewrite the question as a full sentence ('Yuki wants to...') and match it to the option, which forces role tracking.
On longer passages, students read the questions first and then hunt for matching words, producing answers based on a single sentence taken out of context (for example missing that a plan was cancelled in the next paragraph).
This 'search-and-destroy' strategy works on very short texts but fails on multi-paragraph passages where the writer's conclusion or a contrast marker reverses the earlier statement. Students also run short of time and panic-skim.
What to do instead
Teach a skimming pass first: read the first and last sentence of each paragraph and write a three-to-five-word label in the margin, then answer. Explicitly drill contrast and change markers (however, but, in fact, instead, no longer) as signals that the answer may be near but reversed.
In information-retrieval tasks (timetables, notices, event flyers, multiple short notices), students answer from one document without cross-checking the constraints given in the question, such as 'a free event on Sunday that a junior high student can join'.
These tasks require intersecting two or three conditions across sources. Students latch onto the most visually salient detail (a date or a price) and ignore a disqualifying condition such as 'reservation required' or 'adults only'.
What to do instead
Train a checklist method: underline each condition in the question, then tick or cross each candidate source against every condition in a small table before choosing. Practise with items where the most attractive option fails exactly one condition.
In grammar and vocabulary items, students choose the option that 'sounds right' in Japanese translation rather than applying the English structure, e.g. picking a present-tense verb after 'if' in a first-conditional sentence or mis-selecting the passive form.
Translation-based guessing is the default habit from regular lessons, and Japanese has no direct equivalent of English tense sequencing, articles, or subject-verb agreement in the same form. Distractors are designed to match the Japanese intuition.
What to do instead
Have students identify the grammatical target before looking at the options (is this a conditional? a passive? a participle?) and state the rule in one line. Keep an error log of patterns rather than individual items, and re-test the same pattern in new sentences a week later.
Students leave a blank in the word-order or sentence-completion items, or fill it with a word that fits grammatically but not in meaning, because they assemble words in Japanese order and stop at the first arrangement that parses.
Word-order items reward chunking (noun phrase, then verb phrase, then adverbial), but students place words one at a time by feel. Under exam pressure they also skip items they cannot finish instantly instead of using partial credit.
What to do instead
Practise building sentences from the verb outward: identify the verb and its required pattern (give + person + thing, ask + person + to do), then slot chunks. Instruct students never to leave blanks empty, and to re-read the completed sentence aloud in their head to check meaning.
In the guided composition, students write everything they can say about the topic, producing a paragraph with no clear answer to the prompt, no reason, and no linking, and often exceeding the word limit or writing fragments instead of full sentences.
The prompt usually asks for an opinion plus a reason plus a suggestion or example. Students plan in Japanese, then translate sentence by sentence, which loses the structure and produces abrupt, unconnected sentences.
What to do instead
Enforce a three-box plan before writing: opinion, reason with a concrete example, closing sentence. Give fixed frames ('I think ... because ... For example, ...'), require at least two linking words, and practise timed 10-minute drafts with a checklist self-review for capitals, plurals, tense consistency, and full stops.
On cross-curricular tasks (interpreting a simple graph, chart, or short factual text about another subject), students copy numbers or facts without interpreting the trend or explaining the cause the question asks for.
These items combine reading with data or content knowledge, and students treat them as pure reading, so they answer 'what' when the question asks 'why' or 'what does this show'. Unfamiliar vocabulary from the other subject also causes them to skip the item entirely.
What to do instead
Practise a fixed routine: state what the graph or text shows in one sentence, describe the trend in words (increase, decrease, stay the same, the largest/smallest), then answer the question type asked. Build a small vocabulary list of cross-curricular terms (increase, average, percent, compared with) and rehearse them in context.