Hello everyone,

What a crazy week! Last weekend was the center test for our grade 3 students. Then, on Sunday evening, the water for half of Wakayama was turned off to repair a pipe. Of course we didn’t know how long it would take to fix, so there was no school on Monday. The pipe was repaired very quickly (good news!) but then a lot of teachers came down with the flu (bad news!). Now it is Friday and it finally feels like things are getting back to normal.

As I mentioned, the center test was last weekend. As usual, the final test of the first day was the English listening. Let’s take a look at the first 6 questions!

This is a question Kita-sensei would like! An easy question to start the test, you need to listen for the preposition (behind or in front) and vocabulary (back or stomach).

When you see a time question, you need to prepare for time words. Early, late, morning, afternoon, before, after, etc. In this case “the afternoon one” is your hint, and you just have to be careful not to confuse the price (17,000) and chose number 4.

This is a question where you can cross out two answers the first time you listen, then double check the answer the second time you listen. “We have the text and photos” means 3 and 4 are out. After that, listen carefully for the word recipe at the end. This is probably the easiest question in part 1 this year.

This question is more difficult. Make sure you read the question carefully to know that you need to listen for the woman. The difficult part is connecting “opening remarks” with the “start of the party”. This is more difficult as the request comes from the man “taking his place.” With so many teachers out with the flu last week, there were many of us “taking the place” of others during the entrance tests!

There is almost always one math question in part 1, and here it is for this year. When approaching these questions, watch out for words like “half, a third, a quarter” as well as “double, triple, five times as many”. The other thing to be careful of is the last sentence: I’m thinking of…” He hasn’t yet bought the DVDs, so don’t include that in the answer.

(On a side note, who still buys DVDs? Everyone uses Netflix or Hulu these days. Come on test-makers, get with the new generation!)

Lastly, the most difficult question to look at. There is a lot of information here, with the year on the x-axis and the number of fish on the y-axis. A couple difficult words such as “continuous trend” and “exception” are here, but the most important word is “lower”. After that, you just have to find the correct path in the time provided. Fortunately you have a few extra seconds as the test explains part 2 to double check your answers.

If you have any questions about these 6 problems, or anything else on the test, let me know and I will help you through it. Don’t get sick! Stay healthy!