First part: Kyushu University entrance exam analysis and trends 2018

Apart from some minor changes in the number of applicants for certain departments,
there was almost no change in the exam from the previous year.

With regard to the centre test results, some students with a result in the high 60s were still
able to enter the 共創 program in contrast with other programs.

According to Kawaijuku's 九大入試オープン評価 results, a noticeable minority of

students applying for 文 with a D 評価 taken in November were still able to make up the
difference and pass the Kyushu University entrance exam. In contrast, students with a
similar D 評価 applying for most other programs were not able to pass the entrance
exam.

Second part: Kyushu University English exam breakdown 2018

The Kawaijuku forecast for the entrance exam reformation is that the Kyushu University
exam will not radically change to a new format, but rather progressively change over
several years with a large probability of becoming a 4 skills exam by 2024.

One interesting development was on the listening part of the exam. The following is a
new kind of listening question on the exam this year.

Question: The man is going to have his

house painted.

The question is interesting because it

demands that the test takers using
reasoning skills to deduce the answer since
it is not explicitly stated. It requires the
students to understand the present
continuous with future intent along with
the causative verb 'have' meaning that the
house will not be painted by the man. The
correct answer, in this case, being ⓷. This
kind of question requires not just grammar
skills, but also communicative / speaking
skills in order to solve it.
With regard to the 九州大学前期試験長
文総合問題 part, the forecast is that it will
be longer than it was this year and the
trend for 自由英作文 is to be about 100
words long. It was highly recommended
that in order to prepare students for writing
free compositions, that having them write
on various topics helped in building their
story building techniques.
Another interesting development on the exam was the asking of the meaning of simple
expressions by answering with more difficult expressions as demonstrated in the
following examples.

ex. 1
第４段落の下線部 died out に最も近い意味を表すものを、　以下のうちから 1 つ選び、
解答欄に書きなさい。
issued, killed off, murdered, perished

As you can see from the example, it requires different kinds of knowledge to solve it. The
interesting wrong answer is 'killed off' because the students need to realize one is
transitive and the other intransitive. The correct answer being 'perished' in this case.

ex. 2 passage excerpt:

...often (i)liken...to~ ... similarly (ii)applauded ...in a daily (iii)arms race ...

Q 1. Choose the most appropriate meaning of the underlined words or phrases (i) – (iii).
Write the correct word.
(i) cherish, compare, dislike, enjoy
(ii) criticized, deafening, normal, praised
(iii) commute, disappointment, steadiness, struggle

Again we can see the same logic being applied to the question, but the question this time
is written in English and not Japanese. In this question, what are the correct answers?

Another interesting development was to ask what possible interpretations of a paragraph

and write the answer in Japanese.

ex. 3 passage paragraph:

4　But how much sleep do we really need, how can we sleep better, and are there ways
to cheat the system? Research shows that there is a perpetual divide between what's
known to scientists and what most people do. That's why the American Academy of Sleep
Medicine brought together a body of scientists from around the world to answer these
questions through a review of known research. They looked at the effects of sleep on
heart disease, cancer, obesity and human performance.

Q3 Paragraph 4 states that statistics are tough to interpret. According to the passage,
write in Japanese the two possible interpretations of the 2014 Finnish sleep study.

Again as you can see a good comprehension of the paragraph is needed in order to be
able to answer the question. The test takers need to be able to paraphrase and interpret the
meaning of the passage. The trend of having to have a good grasp of the meaning of each
paragraph is expected to continue.

Although explicit grammar questions seem to be falling out of favour, it will be

evaluated within the long text questions. Students will be required to not only have a
good global understanding of texts but also be able to explain the meaning of those same
texts in written answers.
The trend of having to understand and interpret the meanings of passages is expected to
continue and increase as the 2020 introduction of the new entrance exam format
officially begins and thereafter. In order to have students acquire the required skills
needed to pass the Kyushu University entrance exam, good comprehension of each
paragraph in passages will be indispensable. Students will need to read more, more
quickly and understand it well along with being able to express their opinions in written
compositions. From the current tendencies, it appears that, if not for all entrance exams,
at least for the Kyushu University entrance exam a good grasp of the four major skills
will become more and more paramount in enabling students to pass it as the entrance
exam changes become more entrenched.