Listening Comprehension (英語 聴解)
Listening Comprehension opens the Shizuoka English paper and in recent forms carries roughly a quarter of the total marks. The script runs at close to natural speed and most items are played twice, so the marks are won in the seconds before the audio starts - reading the printed question and predicting what to hear - not by scrambling to catch up while it plays.
Before the recording starts
- Underline the question word and the person it asks about: who did it matters as much as what happened.
- Compare the options and name the difference to yourself; that difference (a time, a place, an action, a reason) is what is being tested.
- If you must write into a memo or table, decide what part of speech each blank needs.
Item types
- Picture selection: spot the difference between the pictures first, then listen for exactly that.
- Memo / table completion: you supply English words or figures, so spelling and singular/plural are scored.
- Reply choice: choose the natural response to a request, invitation, apology or offer.
Worked example
Question: "What will Yuki do first?" Options: (a) buy the tickets (b) call her mother (c) meet Ken at the station. In the dialogue Ken suggests meeting at the station, Yuki says she has to call her mother before she leaves, and Ken agrees to buy the tickets. Reasoning: "before she leaves" fixes the phone call as her earliest action; buying tickets is Ken's action, so (a) confuses who does what. Answer: (b).
Traps that cost marks
- Keyword matching: hearing "tickets" and choosing it without checking the subject.
- Missing negation ("You don't have to bring anything") or a correction ("Actually, it starts at 3:30, not 3:00").
- Writing Japanese in a box that asks for English, or misspelling a written answer.
- Switching off after the first reading; the second reading is for confirming the one detail you missed.