Tochigi Public High School Entrance Examination - English common mistakes
Tochigi Public High School Entrance Examination - English · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
In the listening section, candidates start writing the answer to one question while the recording for the next question is already playing, so they miss the key word for the following item.
Japanese junior-high students are trained to read a question, find the answer, and only then move on. Under exam pacing, the recording does not pause for each item, so finishing one answer costs the beginning of the next. The habit of 'complete one before starting the next' collides with one-pass audio.
What to do instead
Practise one-pass listening with a strict rule: while audio plays, only mark a symbol or a single letter next to the item; never write full words. Transfer answers in the pause after the section. Do 10-minute drills where you listen to a 3-minute script and only circle A/B/C, then check. Build the reflex of glancing at the next question during the pause before it starts.
Candidates answer a listening question from a single word they caught (for example hearing 'library' and choosing the library option) without tracking who said it, when, or whether it was negated.
Beginning listeners rely on keyword matching because they cannot yet process full clauses at natural speed. Exam scripts deliberately include distractor words that appear in wrong options, so word-level matching gives a plausible but wrong answer.
What to do instead
Train on questions that require two pieces of information: who and where, or what and when. After each practice item, write the exact phrase in the script that decided the answer and the phrase that made the distractor wrong. Learn to hear negation and correction cues ('not today, but...', 'actually', 'I was going to, but').
On short reading passages, candidates answer from general knowledge or personal opinion instead of locating the sentence in the passage that supports the choice.
Short passages feel easy, so students skim and answer from gist. Japanese entrance exams often include options that are true in the real world but not stated in the text, and options that overstate what the passage says.
What to do instead
Force a two-step routine: underline the line in the passage that supports your choice, then check that the option does not add words like 'always', 'never', 'every', or 'only' that the passage does not contain. For each wrong option, name the exact word that makes it wrong. Practise 15 short passages with this written justification.
On longer passages and information-retrieval tasks (posters, timetables, notices, email threads), candidates read every line in order and run out of time before reaching the questions.
School reading is taught as full sequential translation. Information-retrieval items are designed to be answered by scanning for a condition (day, price, deadline, eligibility), so linear reading wastes minutes and leaves later questions unanswered.
What to do instead
Read the question first and convert it into search keys (a date, a name, a number, a category). Scan for those keys only, then read the surrounding two lines. For multi-condition items, make a small checklist of conditions and tick each one against the chart. Time yourself: 4 minutes per retrieval task, and practise leaving nothing blank.
In grammar and vocabulary items, candidates choose the option that 'sounds right' in Japanese translation rather than checking the English structure (tense agreement, subject-verb agreement, preposition collocation, countable/uncountable use).
Students often translate the sentence into Japanese, decide the meaning, and then pick the option that carries that meaning. Japanese and English differ on tense sequencing, articles, plurality, and preposition choice, so meaning-level matching fails on form-level items.
What to do instead
For each item, identify the grammatical slot before reading the options: is it a verb form after 'have'? A preposition after an adjective? A noun that must agree with a plural subject? Then eliminate by form, not meaning. Keep a personal error list of collocations (depend on, interested in, a few/a little) and review it weekly.
In dialogue-completion and situational-response items, candidates pick the reply that is polite or logical in Japanese but does not match the function of the preceding line (invitation, apology, request, offer, refusal).
Japanese politeness conventions and English response routines do not map one-to-one. A student may choose a direct refusal that is fine in Japanese but marked as inappropriate in English, or miss that 'Would you like...?' expects an acceptance or decline, not information.
What to do instead
Classify each prompt by function first: invitation, offer, request, apology, opinion, small talk. Learn two or three standard English responses per function. Then check register: is the speaker a friend, a teacher, a shop assistant? Eliminate options that answer a different function even if the grammar is correct.
In guided writing, candidates write a correct sentence but do not answer the actual prompt (for example writing about their hobby when the task asks what they would do to help a visitor, or omitting the required reason).
Under time pressure, students write the English they can produce rather than the English the task demands. They also skip planning, so the required content points (opinion plus reason plus example) are never checked.
What to do instead
Before writing, underline the task's requirements and number them (for example: 1 state opinion, 2 give reason, 3 give example). Write 3-5 short sentences mapped to those numbers. After writing, tick each requirement and count the words against the stated limit. Practise with a 6-minute plan-write-check cycle.
In sentence-reordering items, candidates build the sentence by translating from Japanese word order and placing the words in the order they would appear in Japanese, producing an ungrammatical English sequence.
Japanese word order is subject-object-verb with flexible scrambling, while English depends on fixed order and on phrase chunks (prepositional phrases, relative clauses, infinitive phrases). Word-by-word assembly ignores chunk boundaries.
What to do instead
Build from chunks, not words: find the subject and main verb first, then attach one chunk at a time (who did what, where, when, why). Use the given first and last words as anchors. Say the assembled sentence aloud to test natural order, and check that each preposition stays with its noun phrase.
On pronunciation and sound-spelling items, candidates apply Japanese katakana pronunciations, so they misjudge syllable counts, silent letters, and which syllable is stressed (for example treating 'comfortable' as four clean syllables or missing the silent 'k' in 'know').
Japanese has mora-timed rhythm and five vowels, so students insert vowels between consonants and give equal weight to every syllable. English stress and reduction are not represented in katakana, and spelling-to-sound rules (magic e, vowel digraphs, silent letters) are rarely drilled explicitly.
What to do instead
Learn stress by clapping or tapping the strong syllable, not by counting letters. Group words by spelling pattern (light/night/right; read/head/bread) and by silent letter (kn-, wr-, -mb, -alk). Use a dictionary's IPA and stress mark for every new word, and record yourself saying minimal pairs (ship/sheep, walk/work).
Candidates mismanage section timing: they spend too long on one hard reading passage or one reordering item and leave later, easier items or the writing task unfinished or blank.
Japanese junior-high tests often allow generous time per question, so students have no pacing strategy. Entrance exams award no partial credit for time spent, and an unanswered easy item costs the same as a wrong hard one.
What to do instead
Set fixed time budgets per section in practice (for example: listening follows the recording, short reading 1 minute per item, retrieval 4 minutes per task, writing 8 minutes including check). Adopt a rule: if an item is not solved in 90 seconds, mark it and move on. Finish with 5 minutes to transfer answers and confirm no blanks.