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Pre-arrival Admission
Studying in the first grade of Faculty of Social Studies, Doshisha University
Graduated from Yompa Girl’s High School
Participated in Shisa Japanese Language Preparatory School
(Recorded as of April 2014)
I decided to prepare to study in Japan and started preparations in full swing from February, last year. Although I was interested in the Japanese language, I disliked memorizing study items; therefore, I had poor scores in reading comprehension due to my lack of vocabulary in comparison with other aspects.
I registered at a preparatory school in order to increase my vocabulary and improve my reading comprehension scores. Also I tried to listen to lectures, obeyed the guidance of my teacher to the best of my ability, and studied continuously. In particular, I tried to grasp the level of my achievement in reference to mock examinations administered once or twice a month. While consulting my teacher, I was able to reinforce my weak points, which was very useful to me. In my case, I relaxed while studying listening and listening-reading comprehensions and became drowsy because I was stuck on the reading comprehension. However, being aware of these problems, I learnt to concentrate and solve questions calmly in the live EJU.
The writing section allows you to improve your knowledge and common sense in many ways with respect to EJU as well as essays for entrance examinations. Afterwards I tried to acquire social common sense and knowledge, and studied mainly past exam questions. I beat my allergy to writing and began to write essays with confidence.
In preparing for EJU, I set up a schedule and allocated time mainly to address my weak points. It is crucial to reinforce what you believe is the most important and to study until you are really satisfied with what you are learning instead of bothering yourselves too much about the time or amount. For example, I studied about 6 hours a day excluding hours of lessons when I did my utmost. I joined makeup classes on holidays. To be honest, when I was very tired or just needed a break, I sometimes studied less than two hours.
If you always keep the following six points in mind, I believe you will not worry about the entrance examination unnecessarily during the preparation period.
1. It is easy to decide to go to national university. However, you may witness some students who have been given admission to university already from August. Those students can then take on other challenges in comparison with those who have to prepare for national university. It is difficult for you to wait until March for the results. If you can afford to go to private university and you are not fully committed to prepare for national university, you should not simply wish to go there. The preparation period is really very long.
2. Whether you work to enter a private or national university, you should achieve the target score of a certification exam in English before the examination to be administered in June. You will be terribly busy at the latter half of the year. You may be surprised at how quickly the time seems to pass and you may feel you have not done enough. Wishing to be admitted to a high level university, maybe you should study English.
3. You may decide to submit a university application based on the result of EJU’s 1st session to be administered in the June session if possible. It would be difficult to concentrate on the 2nd session to be held in November if the target university has an entrance examination in November. Specifically during this period, you have to tackle many things and you will be burdened by the volume of study in many aspects. Instead of taking it easy and delaying things, be determined to complete it quickly and go forward to the next target.
4. You should thoroughly grasp the entrance examination schedule once you have finished the exam in June. Then you should try to start preparing for entrance examinations early. You should get information regarding the dates of interviews. As there is insufficient time to prepare for the many interviews that you have to go through, you should attend a lecture on interviews once in May to understand the idea of interviews including the atmosphere and how to talk in an interview. Then, immediately after completing the exam in June, you may join other lectures for interviews to become fully prepared.
5. Targeting a private university, you should think of taking the exam of the first phase. You never know what will happen in the latter phase with a much higher rate of competition. Looking for the same university, there may be a big difference in pressure between the two situations, the first one is that you are waiting for the latter phase without any other possibilities, and the second one is that you have passed in the first phase and can look for personal development with ease. If you have not acquired any success in the period of the latter phase examination, you may want to be on the safe side and go for whichever the university is. Please keep in mind that you may not be able to pass any university at the latter phase. The entrance examination may be affected by luck.
6. Whichever the examination is, you should do your best. Check your favorite subjects or parts once again without flattering yourself. The entrance examination is cruel – there are only two possibilities, i.e. success or failure. No excuses are allowed. It is no consolation to think you would have passed if you had done just a little bit more; failure by a narrow margin is still failure.
I don’t wish to seem like a backseat driver, but those six points affected me during my time preparing for the entrance examination. I wish all of you enter university in the next spring and enjoy cherry blossom with bright smiles. I will cheer for your success in the process of admission to university.
