Shizuoka Public High School Entrance Examination - English

Four skills in an integrated way: listening, reading, grammar and vocabulary in context, and short guided writing. Expect tasks that ask you to understand a conversation, pull details from a longer text or a notice, choose the right word form, reorder words into a correct sentence, and express your own idea in a few connected sentences.

The prefectural board of education sets the time limit and the point allocation each year and publishes them in its official examination guidelines. Because these figures change and are announced annually, confirm the current ones on the board's website or in the application documents your school distributes.

It is pitched at junior high graduation level, so it rewards solid fundamentals rather than advanced tricks. Most candidates find the listening and short reading sections manageable; the longer passage and the composition are where marks are usually lost. If you can read a 300-word text comfortably and write six to eight correct sentences, you are on track.

Retake and re-application rules are set by the prefectural board of education and differ by year and by school type. Some schools offer a later recruitment round. Check the current year's official guidelines or ask your junior high school's career guidance teacher, who receives the authoritative schedule.

Start with vocabulary and basic sentence patterns, because they feed every section. Add daily short listening, then timed reading practice, then sentence-reordering drills. Leave composition practice for last but do it regularly: write one short paragraph a day and have someone check verb tense and word order, the two most common error sources.

Running out of time on the long reading passage, writing a composition with inconsistent tense or missing subjects, and mishearing numbers or times in listening. Another frequent problem is leaving reordering questions blank instead of making a reasoned attempt. Practise with a timer so you learn how long each section really takes you.

Listen to short English audio every day, at first with the script and later without. Focus on numbers, days, times, and directions, since these appear often. Before answering, read the question choices so you know what to listen for, and never stop listening to puzzle over one word you missed.

No. The guided writing task asks for a short, coherent response to a prompt, usually a few sentences giving your opinion or describing an experience. Clear structure, correct tense, and relevant content matter far more than length. Plan two or three sentences before writing, and reread once to check subject-verb agreement.

The Shizuoka Prefectural Board of Education publishes past examination papers and answer guidance on its official website, and your junior high school usually keeps copies. Use them to learn the format and timing, not to memorise answers, and review every mistake to see which skill area caused it.