Shimane Public High School Entrance Examination - Japanese common mistakes
Shimane Public High School Entrance Examination - Japanese · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Reading a 説明的文章 and answering with general knowledge or personal opinion instead of locating the sentence in the text that supports the choice, so the answer sounds reasonable but is not what the author wrote.
Explanatory passages in this exam often deal with familiar topics (environment, language, science), and candidates recognise the topic and jump to a plausible statement without tracing it to the passage. The distractors are written to match everyday intuition.
What to do instead
Before choosing, underline the exact sentence or clause in the passage that justifies the option, and write its line number beside the choice. If you cannot point to a supporting sentence, the option is wrong regardless of how sensible it sounds. Practise by covering the choices and writing your own one-sentence answer first, then matching it to the closest option.
Treating 接続語 (however, therefore, for example) as decoration and missing that the question asks about the logical relation between paragraphs, choosing an option that fits the meaning of one sentence but breaks the flow of the argument.
Candidates read for content words and skim over short connectives, especially in long passages where the key turn in the argument is signalled by a single しかし or つまり.
What to do instead
On the first read, circle every 接続語 and mark in the margin whether the paragraph is 具体例, 対比, 原因→結果, or まとめ. For blank-fill connective questions, read the sentence before and after aloud and decide the relation first (contrast? addition? conclusion?), then pick the connective that expresses that relation.
In 文学的文章, answering about a character's feelings by choosing the option that states the emotion most strongly (「激しく怒っている」「深く悲しんでいる」) rather than the one supported by the character's actions and words in the passage.
Emotional vocabulary is attractive and candidates assume literary questions reward dramatic interpretation. In fact the exam tests whether you can read feeling from concrete描写 such as gestures, silence, or changes in wording.
What to do instead
For every feeling question, find and mark the 行動・表情・会話 that reveals the feeling, and choose the option consistent with that evidence. Prefer the option whose intensity matches the described action; if the character only 「黙ってうつむいた」, an option claiming violent anger is unsupported.
Ignoring the 情景描写 (weather, light, season, objects) as mere background and missing that it often mirrors or contrasts with the character's inner state, which is what the question is testing.
Candidates are trained to look for direct statements of feeling and skip descriptive sentences as filler, so they lose the clue the author deliberately placed.
What to do instead
Highlight every 情景描写 and write beside it what mood it suggests (暗い→不安, 晴れ→解放). Then check whether the question asks about the scene's role; answer by linking the described scenery to the character's state at that point in the story.
Reading 古文 by trying to translate word-for-word into modern Japanese and getting stuck on unknown vocabulary, instead of using 古文単語, 助動詞, and 敬語 to identify who does what to whom.
School study often emphasises modern translation, but exam questions usually ask about 主語の判別, 心情, or 敬語の向き, which are answered from grammar markers rather than full translation.
What to do instead
Memorise the core 古文単語 and 助動詞 tables (き・けり, べし, む, る・らる, なり, けむ) with their 意味 and 活用. For each sentence, first mark the 敬語 and decide the 主語 from 尊敬語 (動作の主体) versus 謙譲語 (動作の対象). Then answer the question from those markers before attempting any translation.
In 漢文, reading the 返り点 and 送り仮名 incorrectly and reconstructing the wrong word order, so the meaning of the sentence is reversed or misassigned.
Candidates read the kanji in Chinese order and treat レ点 and 一二点 as decoration, or forget that 置き字 such as 而・於・矣 are not read aloud.
What to do instead
Practise writing the 書き下し文 for each sentence before answering. Apply the rule: レ点 sends you back one character, 一二点 send you back to the matching number, and 上・下点 work the same way at a larger scale. Check your 書き下し by reading it as Japanese and confirming it makes sense.
Answering 漢字の読み書き questions from vague memory of the shape of the character, producing near-miss forms (止める/留める, 傾向/傾行) or mixing 音読み and 訓読み in the wrong context.
The exam draws on 常用漢字 with several readings and on 同音異義語, and candidates study by recognition rather than by producing the character from memory.
What to do instead
Study with output, not input: cover the character and write it from the reading, then check the 画数 and the 送り仮名. Keep a personal error list of characters you have actually miswritten and review it weekly. For 同音異義語, memorise the pair with a short phrase that fixes the meaning (傾向と対策, 計画的に).
In 文法 questions, labelling a 文節 or 単語 by intuition and missing the distinction between 活用形, 品詞の分類, and 文の成分, so a 連体修飾語 is called 連用修飾語 or a 形容動詞 is called 名詞.
Grammar terms are learned as definitions but not practised as operations on real sentences, and candidates confuse 文節 (with ね・よ inserted) with 単語 (meaningful minimum units).
What to do instead
Use the mechanical tests: insert ね・よ to cut 文節; cut further until the unit cannot be divided to get 単語; use 言い切り (does it end in だ/です?) to find 形容動詞; use 「〜が」を補えるか to find the 主語. Do ten sentences a day and label each word's 品詞, then verify against the answer.
Writing the 作文 as a general essay about a worthy topic without answering the specific 条件 (字数, 段落数, 体験を入れる, 意見と理由を示す), or exceeding/undershooting the word limit by a wide margin.
Under time pressure candidates start writing from the first idea and only check the conditions at the end, when there is no room to restructure.
What to do instead
Spend the first three minutes on a 構成メモ: write the 条件 as a checklist, decide the 意見 in one sentence, and list two 理由 with one 体験 each. Then write to the structure: 結論→理由1→体験→理由2→まとめ. Reserve the last five minutes to count characters and confirm every condition is ticked.
In 聴写・書写 tasks, writing what the reader meant rather than exactly what was dictated, or producing characters with wrong stroke order and unbalanced proportions that lose marks on form.
Listeners automatically correct small grammatical slips and paraphrase, and candidates practise reading and writing but rarely practise writing at dictation speed or checking stroke order.
What to do instead
During dictation, write every sound you hear including particles, and do not pause to fix mistakes; leave a gap and return later. Afterward, compare your text with the original phrase by phrase. For 書写, practise the standard 筆順 for the characters most often tested and check balance (左右の幅, とめ・はね・はらい) against a model.