Dialogue and Situational Communication: Appropriate Response Selection
What the section asks
Situational communication items test whether a reply fits the function and relationship: request, permission, invitation, apology, offer, opinion, phone call, shopping, and school office talk. Shiga often uses short Japanese situations and English choices, so the deciding clue is the function word, not vocabulary difficulty.
Core rules
- Label the first utterance: request, invitation, apology, permission, suggestion, or information question.
- Match the expected adjacency pair: “Would you like to…?” → accept or decline; “Would you mind…?” → “Not at all” for permission; “I’m sorry I’m late” → “That’s all right.”
- Keep politeness consistent: “May I…?” is formal; “Can I…?” is neutral.
- For negative questions (“Don’t you like it?”), answer the fact, not Japanese-style agreement.
- Reject replies that are grammatical but answer a different function.
Worked example
A: “Would you mind if I opened the window?” B: (a) No, not at all. (b) Yes, please don’t. (c) Thank you, I will. Reasoning: “Would you mind…?” asks for permission; “No, not at all” means “I don’t mind-go ahead.” (b) is logically possible but contradictory and usually not the test’s natural reply; (c) answers an offer, not a permission request.
Traps
Taking “mind” literally; answering “Yes” to “Would you like…?” instead of “Yes, please”; using “You’re welcome” to “I’m sorry”; confusing “How are you?” with “How do you do?”; ignoring the speaker’s role (teacher vs friend).