[For Exam-Year Students] You Can Use "Middle School Entrance Exam News Commentary Books" for Current Affairs Preparation in University Entrance Essay Exams! (2024 Edition) [Essay Preparation]

Last Updated: 2024/12/27

This series, [Practical Writing], provides lectures on practical techniques for creating essays, compositions, and statements of purpose that I, Shimeno, an essay and composition instructor, teach during my regular correction and grading sessions.

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(You can view Shimeno's self-introduction here.)

Let's use "Middle School Entrance Exam News Commentary Books" for university entrance essay preparation.

University entrance essay exams ask about the "now".

University entrance essay exams are highly comprehensive. Having excellent "Japanese language skills"—such as vocabulary, expression, reading comprehension, and writing ability—as well as logical structuring skills is not enough to handle them sufficiently. Even while I am correcting high school students' essay answers, I frequently see cases where they cannot write a sufficient essay because they do not fully understand (or are not even aware of) the social issues or news that form the theme (subject). It is not quite like the philosopher Wittgenstein, but if you "don't know" about it, you cannot write about it, and you are truly forced to "remain silent." Therefore, it can be said that enriching one's knowledge and understanding of such contemporary social news is also necessary for essay learning.

The themes handled in essay questions are often chosen to reflect the "now" of Japan and the world, so-called current affairs issues. And all of these are issues that have become social problems within the last 30 years.

(Below, you can see the themes that were asked in last year's major university essay exams.)

Therefore, these groups of themes are summarized in "frequently appearing themes" in essay reference books and problem collections. You can utilize these to study themes that have appeared frequently in the past.

(An example of a book for studying essay exam themes)

(There are also books like this for medical, dental, and nursing departments.)

However, what must not be forgotten here is that these are "themes that were frequently asked in the past", and these cannot be called "this year's trends." Of course, if you do not understand the social issues that have been asked as questions until now, you cannot understand the current trend issues because they connect to the social phenomena that became issues this year. Therefore, such "frequent theme learning" is also necessary. However, that study alone is not enough. It is also separately necessary to realistically learn about what is currently becoming an issue right now.

It's impossible to catch up on newspapers and online news from now on for current affairs learning to "know the now"!

As for such realistically updated current affairs learning as essay preparation, what has been "traditionally" said in the educational field until now was "Read the newspaper." Of course, I am not saying that such things are ineffective. However, unless you have "been reading the newspaper in your daily life all along," if you are a student taking the exam this year and are reading this article now and thinking "I'll read the newspaper," you should probably stop. If you haven't been reading the newspaper until now and are trying to start from today, it is too much of a "hopeless game." It is obvious that you will be full of things you don't understand even if you suddenly read it, and you will give up early. Also, to put it in modern terms, the "time performance" is also bad. It is said that the entrance exam questions for that year are generally created from around October of the previous year to October of the current year (*in the case of general entrance exams). Assuming that the current affairs issues of that period are chosen as essay questions, would you be able to look through all the newspaper articles published during that approximately one year? Even if you "could," it is too inefficient a way of learning. Moreover, spending that much time and effort "only on essay study" is not realistic at all.

Therefore, as for learning about current affairs news that became an issue this year, what I would definitely like to recommend is the utilization of "news commentary books for middle school entrance exams." Some high school students might think, "Don't make fun of middle school entrance exams," but that is not the case. The amount of knowledge required for middle school entrance exams is comparable to that required for university entrance exams. I have experience with middle school entrance exams, but to be frank, I have gotten through university entrance exams on the "savings of what I learned in middle school entrance exams" (this is a "common experience for those who have taken middle school entrance exams"). Especially for social studies, I was able to manage with almost everything I did in my middle school entrance exam preparation study. Therefore, I can confidently say that "news commentary books for middle school entrance exams" can also be utilized for university entrance exam study.

The reason why "news commentary books for middle school entrance exams" are recommended

The background to the existence of such "news commentary books for middle school entrance exams" is, of course, that current affairs issues are easily treated as entrance exam questions in difficult private middle school entrance exams. Therefore, middle school examinees (elementary school students) learn about them using these. I use them for university entrance essay preparation. The advantages are as follows.

The above is the reason why I recommend "news commentary books for middle school entrance exams" for current affairs preparation for essays.

4 Recommended "News Commentary Books for Middle School Entrance Exams"

　Here, I will introduce several "news commentary books for middle school entrance exams." While they all have their differences, any of them will work if you are using them for "university entrance essay exam preparation." Feel free to choose the one that seems easiest for you to use. I will list some representative ones here.

(*Currently accepting pre-orders. Scheduled publication date is November 1, 2024.)

(*Currently accepting pre-orders. Scheduled for delivery in early November.)

Summary: Let's Learn Current Affairs Efficiently with Middle School Entrance Exam News Commentary Books!

　As you can see, various publishers release news commentary books for middle school entrance exams. It would be a waste not to use these for essay exam preparation. Even if you start reading the newspaper now, you likely won't be able to cover recent current affairs efficiently. You should utilize these types of books to study current affairs smoothly.

For those struggling with "how to write a statement of purpose," the "Shimeno-style Template for Creating a Statement of Purpose" is recommended!