Reading comprehension
Adverts, emails, articles and stories in kana and the kanji on the list, with the questions in English and your answers in English.
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Reading comprehension, explained point by point
Everything the GCSE specification expects you to be able to do, and how to actually do it - the same lesson a signed-in student studies from.
Know how the reading paper works
Reading is Paper 3 and a quarter of the GCSE, worth 50 marks: 50 minutes at Foundation and 1 hour 5 minutes at Higher, with 10 questions, four of them shared by both tiers. Section A has nine comprehension questions in English, answered in English or by choosing, and Section B is a translation into English. The texts include adverts, emails, letters, articles and literary extracts, mostly set in Japan, and no dictionary is allowed.
Expect more kanji as the paper goes on
The first Foundation questions use only hiragana and katakana, and more kanji appear as the questions get harder. Every kanji you can read saves time, because it gives you the meaning at a glance even if the reading slips your mind. Texts are often printed with a small gap between phrases, which shows you where each one starts.
Read the question first, then find the place
Each question is in English and tells you what to look for. Find the part of the text it points to by spotting a name, a time or a key word, and read that part closely.
Sound out katakana words
Katakana words are borrowed, often from English, so say them in your head: ハンバーガー, コンピューター, サッカー. Watch for ones that have changed meaning on the way: マンション is a block of flats, and アルバイト a part-time job.
Find the meaning at the end of the sentence
The verb comes last, and its ending tells you the tense and whether it is negative: 行きます, 行きません, 行きました. With adjectives, check the end too: たのしかったです is in the past.
Spot opinions, reasons and contrasts
Opinions use words like すき, きらい, おもしろい and つまらない, and reasons end in から. が and でも turn the meaning round. Questions often ask for exactly these.
Read between the lines
Some questions ask how someone feels, or what they mean without saying it. Use the clues: the adjectives they choose, endings like ね and よ, and what happens next.
Answer in English, with the detail asked for
Write every answer in English, because an answer in Japanese earns nothing. Give the number of details asked for, and keep to what the text says rather than what you would expect.
Reading comprehension key terms
The words the specification and the mark schemes use, each defined the way an examiner wants it.
- Comprehension
- Showing you understand a text by answering questions on it.
- Skimming
- Reading quickly for the general idea.
- Scanning
- Searching a text for one detail, such as a time or a name.
- Inference
- Working out something the text suggests but doesn't say outright.
- Loanword
- A word borrowed from another language and written in katakana: テレビ, パン.
- Kanji compound
- A word of two or more kanji. If you know the parts, you can often work out the whole: 日本人, 外国.
- Literary text
- A short extract from a story, a letter or a play, adapted for the exam.
Common mistakes in Reading comprehension
The slips that cost marks year after year, and what to do instead.
Missing the negative at the end of a sentence.
Read every sentence to its last word: ません and ませんでした turn the meaning round.
Taking a katakana word for its English look-alike, such as マンション for a mansion.
Some loanwords have shifted meaning. Check the context: マンション is an ordinary block of flats.
Copying Japanese from the text into your answer.
Answers must be in English. A Japanese answer earns no mark, even a correct one.
Choosing an answer because one word matches the text.
Read the whole sentence around the word. A question often turns on a detail that appears in the text but in a different way.