Reading: Paper 1 Section B, and the reading half of Paper 3 Section B

You have 45 minutes, 20 marks, four questions and two texts, one of them extended. Plan the section, then show how the plan changes when question 3 turns out to be hard.

1. 01Minute 0 to 3: read all four questions and classify them

   Suppose question 1 is multiple-choice on the shorter text, question 2 asks for two reasons from the shorter text, question 3 asks what the writer implies about a policy in the extended text, and question 4 asks you to explain a phrase in context. Classification: 1 is recognition, 2 is retrieval, 3 is inference, 4 is close reading of a specific location. That tells you before you have read a word of Japanese that questions 1, 2 and 4 are locatable and question 3 is the one that will need thinking time.

2. 02Minute 3 to 10: scan both texts and mark regions

   You are not reading for meaning yet. You are looking for the paragraph that mentions the policy in question 3, the phrase named in question 4, and the part of the shorter text that gives reasons for question 2. Japanese helps you here more than English would, because paragraph-initial connectives — しかし, 一方, つまり, たとえば — are visually distinctive and mark structural turns. Mark four regions, and note that they are unlikely to be evenly distributed: an extended passage often hides two answers in one paragraph.

3. 03Minute 10 to 30: close-read the marked regions, in mark order

   Do the cheapest marks first: the multiple-choice, then the retrieval question, then the phrase in context. Each of those has a bounded search space and a bounded answer. That leaves question 3 with a known amount of remaining time rather than an unknown one, which is the whole purpose of ordering by cost. Write each answer as you finish it rather than collecting them for the end; an answer in your head at minute 44 is worth nothing.

4. 04When question 3 turns out to be hard: budget, do not abandon

   Inference questions turn on a construction rather than on a word, and the constructions that carry implication are a small set: ～のではないか, ～とは限らない, ～わけではない, ～ざるを得ない, ～はずだ, ～に過ぎない. Find the one the paragraph uses and read outwards from it. If after five minutes you have not, write the most defensible partial answer you can from what you did understand and move on — an approximate English sentence may earn something and a blank cannot, which is the same logic as the translation section.

5. 05Minute 40 to 45: the two checks that pay

   First, negation: re-read each of your answers against its source sentence and confirm that a negative in the Japanese is still a negative in your English, and that a double negative has not been flattened into a single one. Second, attribution: confirm that a claim you have attributed to the writer is not one the writer attributed to somebody else — ～という指摘がある and ～と言われている both mean the writer is reporting, not asserting. Those two errors account for a large share of avoidable Section B losses.

6. 06And the discipline that makes the plan work

   Leave Section B at 45 minutes even if question 3 is unfinished. Paper 1 Section C is 40 marks — half the paper and 20 per cent of the whole A-Level — in a recommended 1 hour 25 minutes, and minutes borrowed from it to chase two marks here are the worst trade in the qualification. Write down the time you intend to leave each section before the examination begins, and treat it as a rule rather than as a guideline.

Result: The plan: three minutes to read and classify all four questions; seven to scan and mark the regions; twenty to close-read and answer in ascending order of cost, writing each answer as it is finished; five for a hard inference question capped by a hard stop; five for the negation and attribution checks. And the governing rule: leave at 45 minutes regardless, because Section C is worth twice this whole section and follows immediately.

Read this and say, for each sentence, who is acting. 母が帰ってきたとき、台所には湯気が立っていた。何も言わずに鍋の蓋を開け、少しだけ味を見て、それから塩を足した。作ってくれたのだと分かって、急に恥ずかしくなった。台所を出るとき、後ろから、ありがとう、と聞こえた。

1. 01Sentence 1: the only named participant, and a scene-setter

   母が帰ってきたとき、台所には湯気が立っていた. 母 is named and marked が because she is newly introduced. 帰ってきた uses くる to mark movement towards the speaker's location, which quietly tells you the narrator is at home. 湯気が立っていた describes the state of the kitchen with an intransitive verb and ている, so nobody is acting. Provisional margin note: narrator at home, mother arrives.

2. 02Sentence 2: three verbs, no subject, and the default rule

   何も言わずに鍋の蓋を開け、少しだけ味を見て、それから塩を足した. No subject is stated. The default in Japanese narrative is that an unstated subject continues from the previous sentence's most salient participant — here 母, who has just arrived and acted. Nothing in the sentence contradicts that: the actions are ordinary kitchen actions and 何も言わずに, without saying anything, suits somebody who has just come in. Margin note: mother tastes and adds salt.

3. 03Sentence 3: the giving verb reverses the reading

   作ってくれたのだと分かって、急に恥ずかしくなった. くれる means gives to me or to my side, so 作ってくれた means somebody made it FOR the narrator. That single verb tells you two things at once: the cooking was done by somebody other than the narrator, and the beneficiary is the narrator. And it forces a correction of sentence 2 — if the food had been made for the narrator by the mother, then the mother arriving and tasting is consistent, but 作ってくれた is past and refers to the making, so the pot was already cooking when she arrived. Someone else cooked.

4. 04Resolve the contradiction by reading forward, not by guessing

   Sentence 4: 台所を出るとき、後ろから、ありがとう、と聞こえた. The narrator leaves and hears thanks from behind. Thanks is given by a beneficiary, and the person left in the kitchen is the mother — so the mother is thanking the narrator, and therefore the NARRATOR did the cooking, and 作ってくれた in sentence 3 must be the mother's perspective understood by the narrator, or a misreading. Re-read: the narrator realised that she had made it for him is one reading; the alternative is that 分かって belongs to the mother. Japanese permits both and the passage resolves it in the next paragraph.

5. 05The lesson: mark the ambiguity rather than resolving it prematurely

   A foreign reader's instinct is to settle the subject and move on; the correct habit is to mark a subject as provisional and let subsequent evidence confirm or overturn it. In an examination this matters because an inference question will often turn precisely on the sentence where the subject changes. Writing a small question mark in the margin at sentence 3 costs nothing and preserves the option; committing silently to a reading costs the question.

6. 06The three signals that carry subject change in Japanese narrative

   First, the giving-and-receiving verbs: くれる and もらう point towards the speaker's side, あげる away from it. Second, honorifics: an honorific verb elevates somebody other than the speaker, so it cannot describe the speaker's own action. Third, emotion and sensation predicates: 恥ずかしい, 嬉しい, 痛い in plain form describe the speaker's own state, and describing somebody else's requires ～がる or ～ようだ. Any of those three appearing in a sentence is a signal to check whose action you are reading.

Result: Sentence 1: the mother arrives; the kitchen state is described with no agent. Sentence 2: the unstated subject defaults to the mother. Sentence 3: くれる marks the narrator as beneficiary and 恥ずかしくなった marks the narrator as the one feeling, so the perspective is the narrator's throughout. Sentence 4: the thanks come from behind as the narrator leaves the kitchen, which points to the mother thanking the narrator — so the earlier attribution must be held provisionally. The method: mark subjects as provisional, and treat giving-and-receiving verbs, honorifics and emotion predicates as the three signals that a subject has changed.

Resolve every 指示語 in this passage, and say how you know. 地方の自治体では、若い世代の流出が続いている。これに対して、住宅の補助や仕事の紹介などの対策が取られてきた。しかし、そうした取り組みが効果を上げた例は多くない。その理由として、雇用そのものが増えていないことが挙げられる。これは、対策の設計の問題というより、地域経済の構造の問題である。

1. 01これに対して: これ points at a situation, not a noun

   これ here refers to the whole preceding clause — the continuing outflow of young people — not to any single noun in it. This is the commonest use of これ in expository prose and it catches readers who look for a noun antecedent. The test is grammatical: に対して takes a thing responded to, and the response described is a set of policies, which respond to a situation rather than to a generation. Read これ as the state of affairs just described unless a specific noun is clearly indicated.

2. 02そうした取り組み: そうした restricts, and the restriction matters

   そうした取り組み means initiatives of that kind — specifically the housing subsidies and job introductions just listed, not initiatives in general. That restriction is doing argumentative work: the sentence claims that THOSE measures have rarely succeeded, which is a narrower and more defensible claim than that nothing works. A reader who takes そうした as merely such would flatten the claim, and a question asking what exactly the writer says has failed would be answered wrongly.

3. 03その理由: その points back one sentence, to a fact just asserted

   その理由 is the reason for that, where that is the previous sentence's claim — that few such initiatives have had much effect. Note that その and これ are doing different jobs in this passage: これ pointed back to a situation across a sentence boundary at the start, and その points back to a proposition the writer has just advanced. The rough working rule is that これ points to what is close or newly introduced and その to what has just been established, and in expository writing その is far commoner.

4. 04これは: the second これ, and why it is not the same as the first

   これは、対策の設計の問題というより、地域経済の構造の問題である. This これ refers to the fact just given as the reason — that employment itself is not growing. The writer is classifying that fact: it is a structural problem rather than a design problem. ～というより means rather than, and it is a comparative rejection, not a denial: the writer is not saying the design is perfect, only that the design is not the main issue. Reading というより as a flat negative is a standard error.

5. 05Build the chain, and check it holds

   Outflow continues → these policies were adopted in response → policies of that kind have rarely succeeded → the reason is that employment is not growing → and that is structural rather than a design fault. Every link is carried by a 指示語, and the paragraph would be incomprehensible without resolving them. Reading the chain out as a numbered list, as here, is a two-minute exercise that turns a dense paragraph into an argument you could summarise in one sentence.

6. 06Why this matters for the marks

   Section B questions ask what the writer thinks, what a phrase refers to, and why the writer holds a view — all three of which are answered by the 指示語 chain rather than by any single sentence. And Paper 3 Section B's 5(b) asks you to summarise a written source's point of view, which is precisely the chain, not the sentences. So resolving 指示語 explicitly is not a comprehension exercise for beginners; it is the main technical skill that reading in this qualification tests.

Result: これに対して → the continuing outflow of young people, a situation and not a noun. そうした取り組み → specifically the housing subsidies and job introductions just listed, a restricted set. その理由 → the reason for the claim just made, that few such measures have succeeded. これは → the fact that employment itself is not growing. And というより → a comparative rejection, not a denial. The chain is the argument, and summarising the passage means summarising the chain.

The paragraph is: 若者の車離れがよく話題になるが、調査によれば、車を持ちたくないというより、持てない事情がある場合が多いという。都市部では駐車場の費用が高く、公共交通も発達している。ただし、地方では事情が異なり、車がなければ生活が難しい地域も少なくない。 Question 1, multiple-choice: According to the text, why do many young people not own cars? (a) They dislike driving. (b) In cities, costs and good public transport make it unnecessary or unaffordable. (c) Cars are unavailable in rural areas. (d) Surveys show attitudes have not changed. Question 2, open-response: What does the writer imply about the phrase 若者の車離れ?

1. 01Question 1: answer from the text before looking at the options

   The text's own answer is in 持ちたくないというより、持てない事情がある — not that they do not want to, but that circumstances prevent it — followed by the two circumstances: parking costs are high in cities and public transport is developed. So the answer, in your own words before reading any option, is: because in cities it is expensive and public transport makes a car unnecessary. Now look at the options and (b) matches. Total time: under a minute, and no distractor had a chance to work on you.

2. 02See what each distractor was built from

   (a) dislike driving is the reversed version of 持ちたくないというより — the text explicitly rejects it, which is the reverse-the-negative distractor. (c) uses 地方 and 車 from the last sentence but with the scope inverted: the text says cars are NECESSARY in rural areas. (d) uses 調査によれば from the text, attached to a claim the text never makes. Each distractor is made of real material used wrongly, which is why answering from the text first is the defence.

3. 03Question 2: classify it — implies means inference

   The verb is implies, so the answer is not stated. Look for the construction: が in the first sentence is the contrastive but, and it sets 若者の車離れがよく話題になる against what the survey found. That structure — this is often talked about, BUT the evidence says something else — implies that the writer regards the phrase as a common framing that the evidence does not support. That is an implication carried by が and by というより, not by any noun.

4. 04Check the second construction before answering

   持ちたくないというより、持てない事情がある. 車離れ literally means a moving away from cars and connotes a change of taste — a generation that has turned away. というより rejects precisely that connotation and substitutes constraint. So the implication is specifically about the word: it attributes a preference where the writer says circumstances are at work. Naming which part of the phrase the writer is contesting is what turns a general answer into a precise one.

5. 05Write the inference answer in English, and keep it to the implication

   That the phrase is misleading: it suggests young people have chosen to turn away from cars, whereas the writer says the evidence points to circumstances that prevent ownership, particularly cost and available alternatives in cities. That answers implies, names what is misleading, and cites the ground. It does not say the writer thinks young people love cars — the text does not say that — and it does not translate the paragraph.

6. 06The check that catches the standard error here

   Read your answer and ask: is it about the PHRASE, or about car ownership? The question asked what the writer implies about 若者の車離れ, which is a phrase, so an answer about how many young people own cars has answered a different question. Questions about a word or a phrase are common in this section precisely because they test whether you can separate what a text says from how it frames what it says, and that separation is what the AO2 grid means by inferring meaning from complex written material.

Result: Question 1: option (b), reached by answering from the text before reading the options, with the three distractors identifiable as a reversed negative, a scope inversion and a false attachment to 調査によれば. Question 2: that the phrase is misleading — it implies a change of taste, whereas the writer says the evidence points to circumstances, especially cost and public transport in cities, that prevent ownership. The implication is carried by the contrastive が and by というより, and the answer must be about the phrase rather than about car ownership.

The written source argues that raising the retirement age would help with labour shortage; concedes that older workers' health varies considerably; cites a survey showing many people want to keep working; and concludes, with a hedge, that this could be part of a solution but is not sufficient on its own. Write 5(b).

1. 01Identify the four elements before writing anything

   Claim: raising the retirement age would help. Grounds: a survey showing many want to keep working. Concession: health varies. Hedge: could be part of a solution, not sufficient alone. Those four map onto four sentences, and writing them in that order produces a summary whose shape mirrors the source's argument — which is what summarising a point of view means, as opposed to listing what a text mentions.

2. 02Sentence one: the claim, with the right reporting verb

   この文章は、定年の延長が人手不足の緩和につながると主張している. 主張する is argues, stronger than 述べる and correct for a text advancing a case. 定年の延長 is the raising of the retirement age; 緩和[かんわ] is easing; ～につながる is leads to, a very useful verb for causal claims because it is weaker than 引き起こす and therefore usually more accurate. Note that この文章は identifies the source, which matters when 5(c) will compare it to another.

3. 03Sentence two: the grounds, with a different verb

   その根拠として、働き続けたいと考える人が多いという調査結果を挙げている. ～を根拠として挙げる is cites as grounds, and it is a different verb from the first sentence. 働き続けたいと考える人 is a relative clause using たい plus と考える. 調査結果 is survey findings. The whole sentence attributes the survey to the text rather than presenting it as fact, which is correct: you have not seen the survey and neither has the examiner.

4. 04Sentence three: the concession, marked as a concession

   一方で、高齢者の健康状態には個人差が大きいことも認めている. 一方で marks the turn; 個人差[こじんさ] is individual variation, a precise noun; ことも認めている uses 認める, acknowledges, which is the verb reserved for a point conceded against the writer's own case. Including the concession is not padding — a summary that omits it reports the source as more one-sided than it is, and the AO2 grid is about understanding the source.

5. 05Sentence four: the hedge, at its own strength

   結論として、定年の延長は対策の一つにはなりうるが、それだけでは十分ではないとしている. ～うる after a ます-stem means can be, and なりうる is could become — the precise rendering of could be part of. だけでは十分ではない is not sufficient on its own. ～としている is a neutral attribution verb for a text's stated position. Reporting a hedged conclusion as a firm one would misrepresent the source, and a 5(c) built on that misreading would then attack a position nobody holds.

6. 06Check: four elements, four verbs, no evaluation

   主張している, 挙げている, 認めている, としている. Four reporting verbs, none repeated, feeding the range half of the combined AO3 grid at no cost. And nothing in the summary says whether the argument is any good, which is correct: evaluation belongs at 5(c), where its marks are, and a candidate who evaluates here has spent characters where no marks exist. Read it back once for the hedge — is the conclusion still tentative in your summary? It is.

Result: この文章は、定年の延長が人手不足の緩和につながると主張している。その根拠として、働き続けたいと考える人が多いという調査結果を挙げている。一方で、高齢者の健康状態には個人差が大きいことも認めている。結論として、定年の延長は対策の一つにはなりうるが、それだけでは十分ではないとしている。 Claim, grounds, concession and hedge — the four elements of a point of view, in the source's own order, with four different reporting verbs and no evaluation.