English Club site

The English Club here at the university has a new site that I am proud of. It is really well thought out.
Give it a look. Yokkaichi University English Club.

Auto inspection

I drive a 660 cc Suzuki. Kei cars are a special class of cars with a small body size and small engine. They are taxed differently, and insurance is cheaper. It gets great mileage (kilometerage?) and gets me everywhere I need to go in great time. One thing one must do every once in a while is have them inspected, just like all other cars. It is another way to discourage people from driving, because it is expensive. Inspection is also cheaper for kei cars, but mine cost around 70,000 yen, around 700 dollars. I was thinking about just selling the car. After doing the math, it would be cheaper to take the train than to have a car. My wife discrouaged me from doing that, though. My car also has four wheel drive, which is good for the kind of environment we live in. I used it quite a bit last winter. Not at all this year, so you can guess the kind of winter we have had.

I love the car, but I can hardly wait until I can just live without a car. I lived for years in Japan without one, and it would be easy enough to do it again. Now might not be the time, though.

Graduating 4th years

Today three of the forth year students who are taking their first-year course for the forth time came. It looks like those three will pass. Unfortunately there are five in the class. One guy got motivated after he found gainful employment, for which he would need a diploma.

Center Exams Again

What is it with these Center Exams? I wrote about them last year.

I said that they weren't very well constructed and that for a test for such high stakes (students higher education and careers beyond) that it is an outrage that people carry on as if nothing is really happening to the students and parents involved.

Here is a problem of the English test. See if you can answer it. There is only one correct answer.

Choose the word which gets the most stress (the word that gets pronounced the loudest) from among the red, italicized words in the conversation.

Explanation: Maya is shopping with Jeff, who has recently arrived in Japan. (original in Japanese)

Maya: Here comes our train. It's not too crowded.
Jeff: Do the trains get any worse than this?
Maya: Oh, yes. During the morning rush hour they're twice as bad.
Jeff: I can't imagine a train being more crowded than this. Where I'm from, we can always get a seat.
Maya: You are lucky, but you'll have to get used to the crowds here. How do you get to school? Do you take the train?
Jeff: No, I walk to school.

1. a. get b. any c. worse d. than
2. a. they're b. twice c. as d. bad
3. a. we b. can c. always d. get
4. a. I b. walk c. to d. school

As for the "correct answers," you got me. I looked in the newspaper this morning in Sundays 読売新聞　(Yomiuri Shinbun) at the correct answers. The answer number 3 is c.

I think this questions 1 and 3 are impossible to answer with any degree of certainty. And is even one question potetially significant? Sure. If your score is 499 and your university of choise requires a 500, and you have chosen the incorrect answer for this question, it is very significant.