Toyama Prefectural Public High School Entrance Examination - English common mistakes
Toyama Prefectural Public High School Entrance Examination - English · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
The candidate writes a final answer while the recording is played the first time, then stops concentrating and never revisits it during the second reading.
The Toyama listening items are played twice, and the second reading often contains a small self-correction (a changed time, a different meeting place, 'no, wait -'). Candidates who treat the first hearing as final hear the correction but do not act on it.
What to do instead
Treat the two readings as two different jobs. On the first reading, decide on a provisional answer and mark it lightly in pencil. On the second reading, listen only for the numbers, names, and places and compare them to what you marked. If a speaker corrects themselves, erase and rewrite immediately, before the next item starts.
The candidate hears a number and copies it without deciding which quantity the question is asking about - for example, writing the departure time when the question asks how long the trip takes.
Times, prices, durations, and counts all appear close together in the same short dialogue, and the candidate is still translating the question while the numbers go past.
What to do instead
Before the recording starts, write one word next to the question naming the quantity needed (TIME / HOW LONG / PRICE / HOW MANY). When a number appears, write it with its unit ('20 min', '4:30') instead of a bare figure, then choose the option that matches the meaning, not word-for-word - 'It takes twenty minutes by bike' answers 'about a 20-minute bicycle ride'.
The candidate chooses the option that repeats the most words from the passage, without checking whether the surrounding sentence says the same thing.
Distractors are built by copying vocabulary from the text while reversing the logic (adding 'not', swapping cause and effect, or attributing one person's action to another). A shared word feels like proof of correctness, so the candidate stops reading.
What to do instead
Use a two-step rule: any option supported only by shared vocabulary is eliminated first. Then find the one sentence in the passage that carries the same meaning in different words, and point to it before marking the answer. If you cannot locate that sentence, the option is wrong regardless of how familiar it looks.
The candidate works through the paper in order, spends too long on one difficult passage, and reaches the long final passage with almost no time left, guessing the last several questions.
The passages are not arranged by difficulty and the long essay or e-mail item carries several questions, so a single stall early on costs a disproportionate number of points.
What to do instead
Set fixed time boxes before starting (for example, no more than a set number of minutes per passage) and keep a visible clock. Read the questions for a passage before the passage itself, answer the detail items directly, and skip and return to any item that has taken more than a minute. Never leave the long final passage for the last five minutes.
The candidate answers a 'which is NOT true' or 'which does the writer say' item as if it were an ordinary true/false item, choosing a statement that is factually correct in the passage.
Under time pressure the candidate reads the options and not the question stem, so the negative or limiting condition is never registered.
What to do instead
Before looking at the options, circle the decisive words in the question and restate the task to yourself in one short sentence ('find the one that is false'). With a NOT item, tick every option that is true in the passage and choose the remaining one. With 'the writer says', reject anything that is true in the real world but absent from the text.
On word-ordering items the candidate assembles the words in the order of the Japanese sentence, producing something like 'I to the library my friend with went'.
The candidate is translating word by word from the Japanese prompt instead of building the English sentence from its grammatical skeleton, which is the only reliable route when the words are given out of order.
What to do instead
Find the main verb first, then the subject that agrees with it. Next, attach the fixed pieces that cannot be separated: preposition + noun, to + verb, a relative pronoun + its clause, an adjective + the noun it modifies. Place those blocks into the gaps and read the whole sentence back to check it sounds like English, not like translated Japanese.
The candidate mixes past and present tense within one short piece of writing, or writes a plural subject with a singular verb, in sentences describing a single event.
Japanese narration does not require the same obligatory marking of tense and number on every verb, so once the idea is fixed the candidate stops monitoring the verb form.
What to do instead
Decide the time frame of the whole answer before writing the first sentence and write it at the top as a reminder ('last summer → past'). Then check every verb against that frame, and check every subject against its verb for -s / plural agreement. Read the finished answer once with the pen touching each verb only.
The candidate translates a Japanese idea into one long English sentence, producing run-ons and fragments such as 'I went to the sea with my friend it was very fun because we swam a lot.'
The candidate is carrying Japanese sentence boundaries and topic-comment structure into English, where a clause needs an explicit subject and verb and cannot simply be chained on.
What to do instead
Write one idea per sentence. Start every sentence with an explicit subject and verb, then add place, time, and reason after it. Use the small set of patterns you have practised as frames (I think that ~, There is ~, When I ~, I want to ~, ~ because ~) and join two clauses with one clear connector rather than a comma.
The candidate finishes the writing task without checking the conditions: fewer words than required, only one of the two required reasons, the given word unused, or content that answers a different question from the one asked.
The conditions are stated in English in the prompt and the candidate reads them once quickly in order to start writing, then drafts from memory of what a similar task usually asks.
What to do instead
Before writing, copy each condition into a short checklist in the margin (word count, number of reasons, the required word, the audience). Write with the checklist visible and tick each item after the draft. Then count the words and confirm the answer addresses the exact question in the prompt, not a general topic.
In dialogue-completion and situational-response items the candidate chooses a reply that is grammatically correct but does the wrong job - answering 'Shall we meet at three?' with 'Yes, I met him', or replying to a teacher's request in casual form.
The candidate matches the reply to a keyword in the prompt line rather than identifying what the speaker is doing (inviting, offering, requesting, apologising) and who is speaking to whom.
What to do instead
Before reading the options, label the prompt line with its function and the relationship (invitation / friend, request / teacher). Then read the options and eliminate any that respond to a different function, and any that use casual forms to a teacher or overly stiff forms to a close friend. Only then check grammar.