English Language Entrance Examinations at Japanese Universities: What Do We Know About Them?

Many types of items are used in language tests, ranging from receptive to
productive and discrete-point to integrative, and passage-based to
passage-independent. This study defines and investigates the types of items
used in entrance examinations in English administered at Japanese universities
in 1993. Ten examinations each from private and public universities along with
the nationwide "Center" examination (21 examinations) were studied to
determine: 1) the difficulty of the various reading passages; 2) the differences in
the levels of reading passage difficulty in private and public examinations; 3)
the types of items, their variety, and the test length; 4) the differences in the
types of items used in private and public examinations, and 5) the skills measured.
The examinations were analyzed item-by-item by a native speaker of English
and a native speaker of Japanese. Computer analysis was performed to investigate
the level of difficulty of the reading passages. The results should help English
teachers in Japan prepare students for taking such tests and help their students
in deciding on which to take. Equally important, this study may aid those
responsihle for creating entrance examinations to prepare high quality tests.