Saga Public High School Entrance Examination - English common mistakes
Saga Public High School Entrance Examination - English · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Hearing a number, price, or time in the listening passage and writing it down the moment it is spoken, then never updating it when the speaker corrects or compares it (e.g. "The train leaves at 9:15, not 9:50 as the sign says").
Numbers are the easiest content to catch, so candidates latch onto the first one and stop listening, missing the contrast word or the self-correction that follows.
What to do instead
Train yourself to hear numbers only as part of a whole sentence: note both figures if two appear and decide at the end which one answers the question. Practise with short dialogues containing one corrected number, one comparison, and one distractor, and write the final answer only after the track stops.
Answering the listening question from a word that appears in the options rather than from the meaning of the exchange, so a single matching noun such as "library" or "basketball" triggers a choice even when the speaker says they are not going there or do not play it.
Under time pressure the brain matches surface sound, not sense; options are written to contain words from the passage precisely to catch this.
What to do instead
Read the options before the track starts and mark what each one actually claims (who, where, when, how). While listening, ask "does the speaker confirm or deny this?" and reject any option whose only link is a repeated word. Do ten denial-type items ("I wanted to go, but...") and write down the reason for each rejection.
Reading the passage once, deciding the answer feels right, and never returning to the exact sentence that supports it, so answers are chosen from general impression or from the topic of the text.
Entrance-exam passages are long and the clock is visible; students trade accuracy for speed and trust memory of the gist rather than the printed line.
What to do instead
Adopt a fixed two-step routine: locate the sentence (underline it), then match it word by word to the option. For every practice question, write the line number of the supporting sentence next to the answer; if you cannot find one, the option is wrong. Do this even when the answer seems obvious, until it becomes automatic.
Treating "not stated" and "false according to the passage" as the same thing, and choosing an option that is true in real life but absent from the text, or rejecting a true statement because it was not the main idea.
Candidates import background knowledge (science facts, common customs) and confuse the passage's content with their own; the difference between true-in-the-world and true-in-the-text is never made explicit in class.
What to do instead
For each option, mark T (stated), F (contradicted), or N (not mentioned), and check the text for each mark. Practise with sets where two options are real-world true but textually absent, so the distinction becomes visible and uncomfortable enough to remember.
Choosing an answer that is grammatically correct in isolation without checking the surrounding words, e.g. filling "I have been to Kyoto three times ___ 2019" with "in" because "in 2019" sounds natural, ignoring the present perfect construction.
Fill-in-the-blank items are answered by ear or by local phrase memory; the tense or structure signalled by the rest of the sentence (since/for, comparatives, reported speech backshift) is skipped.
What to do instead
Before choosing, circle the time expression, the auxiliary, and any word before and after the blank. Decide the required structure first (tense, voice, comparison, conditional), then pick the option that fits it. Drill one structure at a time with the signal words highlighted, then mix them.
Guessing collocations and word forms from the Japanese meaning alone, producing "do a decision", "open the light", "interested to music", or using the noun where an adjective is needed ("It is a beauty place").
Vocabulary is studied as a one-to-one word list, so the partner word, the preposition, and the part of speech are never learned together with the meaning.
What to do instead
Record new words as full chunks: "make a decision", "turn on the light", "be interested in", "a beautiful place". When reviewing, cover the English and produce the whole chunk, not the single word. Keep a separate list of verb-plus-preposition and adjective-plus-preposition pairs and test yourself on those only.
Writing the required content but leaving it as one long block of short, loosely connected sentences, with no topic sentence, no linking words, and no clear answer to the prompt's question.
Students count words instead of planning structure, and they have never been shown that the examiner is looking for organisation and a stated opinion, not just correct sentences.
What to do instead
Use a fixed skeleton for the free-writing task: one sentence stating your position, two sentences giving reasons with "because", "for example", "also", and one closing sentence restating the position. Write the skeleton in the margin first, then fill it. Practise the same skeleton on five different prompts so the structure, not the content, becomes the habit.
Producing a sentence that is grammatically correct but does not do the required job in the situation, e.g. answering "Can I speak to Mr. Tanaka?" with "Yes, you can" or replying "I'm fine" to "Would you like some more tea?", and forgetting please, excuse me, or the polite form when asking a stranger.
Candidates translate the literal meaning of the Japanese prompt and answer the grammar of the question rather than the social action (requesting, offering, apologising, asking permission).
What to do instead
Learn situational pairs as functions, not sentences: for each function (request, offer, permission, apology, invitation) memorise one polite formula and one casual formula, and practise choosing between them by who is speaking to whom. Do role-play drills where the same content must be delivered to a friend and to a teacher.
Assuming English spelling matches sound when pronouncing or identifying stressed syllables, so "comfortable" is said with four clear syllables, "vegetable" with four, and "preSENT" (verb) and "PREsent" (noun) are confused.
Japanese is mora-timed with fairly even stress, so learners give every written vowel a beat and do not hear or produce the reduced syllables and stress shifts that English relies on.
What to do instead
Learn each new word with its stress pattern marked (COMfortable, VEGtable) and practise the weak forms in phrases, not isolated words. Use a dictionary audio and shadow it, clapping on the stressed syllable. Test yourself by identifying which syllable carries the stress in ten words a day, including noun/verb pairs like present, record, and increase.
Using katakana English or a Japanese-influenced sound for words that exist in both languages, so "video" becomes three even beats, "th" becomes "s", and "r" and "l" are merged when reading aloud or in the speaking section.
Loanwords feel familiar and are never re-learned phonetically, and the /θ/, /r/, /l/, and /v/ contrasts do not exist as separate sounds in Japanese, so they are not noticed.
What to do instead
Make a short list of high-frequency loanwords (video, salad, milk, coffee, radio) and relearn their stress and vowel sounds from audio. For the problem consonants, practise minimal pairs (right/light, think/sink, very/berry) aloud with a mirror or recording, and check your own recording against the dictionary audio rather than against how the word looks in katakana.