中学入試（chugaku nyushi）：Entrance examinations for junior high schools

The season of entrance examination of junior high schools has begun. In Tokyo and Kanagawa usually there are entrance examinations of private junior high schools on Feb. 1st. However it was happened to fall on Sunday this year. Some Christian schools changed their examination dates to Feb. 2nd. It is estimated that about 53,000 6th graders took the private or public junior high school examinations yesterday and today in the metropolitan area.
Usually you do not have to take an entrance examination to go up to public junior high school from elementary school. In the special cases you do. For example, in Kanagawa prefecture the first two public six-year secondary schools, so-called "公立中高一貫校(koritsu chu ko ikkan ko)," will be open in Hiratsuka and Sagamihara this April. They had aptitude tests and essay tests on Feb. 1st and will have group activity tests on Feb. 7th.
The fixed number for admittance was 80 boys and 80 girls for each school. One school had 1,022 applicants and the other had 2,601. Their acceptance rates were 6.39 and 16.26 respectively.
Public six-year secondary shools are popular because they are less expensive than private schools and students don't have to take the rigorous entrance examinations for high schools therefore they can expect long-term education and concentrate on sports or study.
The results will be published on Feb. 11th.
Good luck!

受験シーズン (juken sizun) : Season of Entrance Examinations

Schools in Japan start in April and end in March. After preschool Japanese people go to elementary school for 6 years and then junior high school for 3 years. These 9 years are compulsory education therefore everybody have to go to school. After that more than 96 % go up to high schools. The entrance examinations for high schools have just begun. I think this is the first challenge for most Japanese people.
In Kanagawa prefecture, systems of entrance examinations have been changed drastically between 2004 and 2005. Now there are two chances for candidates to apply for public high schools. At the first selection about 30% of the fixed number will be chosen by application, self-PR essay, school academic records, interview and either essay examination or skill examination or self-expression activity. At the latter selection about 70% of the fixed number will be chosen by application, school academic records, and achievement tests of 3 to 5 subjects.
Year 2009 is the 150th anniversary for Yokohama to have opened its port to the world. Yokohama City decided to open very unique high school from April this year called Yokohama Science Frontier High School which specializes in science. The school provides 20 laboratories, 400 personal computers, dome for observation of the heavenly bodies, and so on. Some of the Super Advisors are Nobel Prize winners! The capacity is 6 classes for 240 students.
There was the first selection today. The fixed number of all Kanagawa high schools for the first selection is 18,698 and the number of applicants was 41,335, which is 2.21 times as many as the fixed number. However Yokohama Science Frontier High School had the highest competition rate of 5.24, more than double of average. How popular!
The result will be published on Feb. 3.
Good luck boys and girls!

FYI:
http://www.city.yokohama.jp/me/kyoiku/sidou2/koukou/sfh/image/YSFH_English.pdf

センター試験 （senta shiken）

It has been said that it is very difficult to enter universities but easy to graduate from them in Japan. Yesterday and today there were so-called senta shiken (センター試験), National Center Test for University Admissions at 738 places throughout Japan.
There were 543,981 applicants this year, and 79.3% of them are the third year high school students. There are 797 colleges and universities (82 national, 89 public, 626 private) which use these tests' scores for judging. Some schools use these scores only but others use these scores in addition to their own entrance exams. Candidates choose the tests according to their school's requirements.
There are 28 tests in 6 subjects. Yesterday there were tests of Civics, Geography and History, Japanese, and Foreign Languages. Today there were Science and Mathematics. Since many schools require Foreign Language, 501,115 candidates (92.1%) took the examination yesterday. There are 5 choices (English, German, French, Chinese, Korean), but most of them take English. They have to take listening comprehension test too.
Usually it had been bad weather when there were National Center Test for University Admissions, but it was rather nice weather this year.
Good luck!