Reading Comprehension (読解)
Reading is the largest block of the paper. It usually pairs a dialogue set in school, travel, shopping or club life with an explanatory or opinion passage on environment, technology, culture or school life. Questions ask for content matching, sentence-level gap filling, reference (what does "it/this" point to), and short written answers in English.
Reading order
- Skim the questions first and mark their keywords.
- For gap-fill items, read the sentence before and after the blank; the connector (However / For example / Therefore) tells you the direction the missing sentence must take.
- Locate the paragraph that contains the keyword, then read that paragraph fully.
What a correct option looks like
- Content-matching options paraphrase the text: "took a long time" matches "was time-consuming". Match meaning, not shared words.
- Extreme options (all, never, only, always) are usually wrong unless the passage states them.
- Reference items: substitute the candidate back into the sentence and check that it still reads true.
Worked example
Text: "The shop began selling ugly vegetables at half price. It was not charity but good business: customers came back for other items." Question: What does "It" refer to? Reasoning: "It" is the subject of "was not charity but good business", so it must name an action or policy, not "the shop". Substituting: "Selling ugly vegetables at half price was not charity but good business." Answer: selling ugly vegetables at half price.
Traps
- Choosing an option that is true in real life but absent from the passage.
- In "answer in English" items, copying a sentence that does not fit the question word - a Why question needs a reason clause.
- Losing the timeline when a passage moves between past and present.
- Stopping at the first matching word instead of checking the whole option.