2019 Japanese Government Scholarship Qualifying Exam PDF

# 2019年度日本政府(文部科学省)奨学金留学生選考試験 ## QUALIFYING EXAMINATION FOR APPLICANTS FOR THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT (MEXT) SCHOLARSHIP 2019 ### 学科試験 問題 ### EXAMINATION QUESTIONS #### (学部留学生) #### UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS ### 英語 ### ENGLISH #### 注意☆試験時間は60分。 #### PLEASE NOTE:...

# 2019年度日本政府(文部科学省)奨学金留学生選考試験 ## QUALIFYING EXAMINATION FOR APPLICANTS FOR THE JAPANESE GOVERNMENT (MEXT) SCHOLARSHIP 2019 ### 学科試験 問題 ### EXAMINATION QUESTIONS #### (学部留学生) #### UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS ### 英語 ### ENGLISH #### 注意☆試験時間は60分。 #### PLEASE NOTE: THE TEST PERIOD IS 60 MINUTES. ## ENGLISH (2019) ### Nationality ### No. (Please print your full name, underlining your family name) ### Marks ### Name ## I Choose the word or phrase that best completes each sentence: 1. A judge should be ( ) in a case: - A disengaged - B disgruntled - C disinterested - D disposed 2. Their research helped explain how plants, animals, and humans ( ) their biological rhythm so that it is synchronized with the Earth's rotations: - A adapt - B behave - C conclude - D escape 3. "You look a bit ( ). Are you all right?": - A beyond repair - B in the pink - C off the top of your head - D under the weather 4. These scientists identified the mechanisms, ( ) light on the biology of humans and other multicellular organisms: - A pointing - B receiving - C shedding - D showing 5. Some insects manage to escape ( ) by merging with background: - A defense - B destiny - C detection - D detention 6. The word "emoji" (a small digital image or icon used to express an idea, emotion, etc., in electronic communications) is ( ) from Japanese: - A a borrowing - B an export - C an import - D a rental 7. I'm afraid I'm ( ) a cold and won't be able to go to the party: - A catching up with - B coming down with - C falling for - D sickening with 8. The director spread her arms ( ) in a welcoming gesture: - A broad - B extensive - C large - D wide 9. He said that he would be back right ( ): - A away - B down - C on - D promptly 10. The Academic Coordinator is responsible for all aspects of our Japanese program, including placement, course design, syllabi, assignment of grades and materials development and selection, ( ) training, supervision, and evaluation of TAs: - A as well as - B but for - C in addition - D no less than ## II Choose the word or phrase that best completes each sentence: 1. My PC is lighter than yours ( ) 100 grams: - A at - B by - C in - D on 2. “Have you ever seen an ice skating show?” “Yes, I have seen ( ) in Tokyo. It was amazing": - A any - B it - C one - D some 3. If your tablet ( ) fail, the company will send a replacement to you: - A could - B might - C should - D would 4. ( ) no telling what he would actually do on this, or any other, issue: - A Here is - B It is - C This is - D There is 5. My father knows little about fencing, and ( ): - A neither do I - B neither I do - C so do I - D so I do 6. The house was beyond repair, so my father has ( ): - A it rebuild - B it rebuilt - C it rebuilding - D it to be rebuilt 7. Energy is transferred by different devices, and the rate ( ) energy is transferred is called 'power': - A at which - B of which - C to which - D whose 8. At the beginning of the cabinet meeting, the new prime minister demanded that his speech ( ) memorized: - A be - B is - C was - D would be 9. It is worth ( ) to check the area out for yourself because it has dramatically changed now: - A for you to do - B for your doing - C you to do - D your doing 10. I ( ) after the first couple of months: - A got used to driving - B got used to drive - C used to driving - D used to drive ## III In the following paragraphs, one of the underlined parts is grammatically incorrect. Choose the incorrect part. 1. _A_ The smartphone is a convenient and essential part of our personal and business lives. _B_ But is it secure if it's lost or stolen? _C_ Not likely. Here's another twist: _D_ Even if you've got the phone in your hand, it may not be safe. 2. _A_ Steve McCoy was 20 years old when his wife, Michelle, gave birth to their first children - a son named Leroy. _B_ It was 1996. _C_ McCoy was living in the tiny town of Cherokee, North Carolina. _D_ He was the first member of his family to go to college. 3. _A_ The 1918 flu pandemic fueled many scientific advances, including the discovery of the influenza virus. _B_ However, the virus itself did not _caused_ all of the deaths. _C_ Instead, a fraction of individuals infected by the virus were susceptible to pneumonia due to secondary infection by bacteria. _D_ In an era before antibiotics, pneumonia could be fatal. 4. _A_ In 2014, Scottish artist Katie Paterson started a new project - _B_ one that will ultimately last a century and rely solely on hope and the goodness of future generations. _C_ That project, called the Future Library, now well underway. _D_ It will result in an anthology of 100 books, printed 100 years in the future, with paper from trees out of a newly planted forest in Norway. 5. _A_ Migration is costly. _B_ It's costly in economic terms, and it's costly in terms of life disruption. _C_ It's not something done light. _D_ Immigrants move because they perceive an opportunity to better themselves in some way. 6. _A_ Forget party parrots: _B_ When it comes to avian noise-making, crested pigeons are the real party animals. _C_ If you've ever heard a flock frantically get airborne, you're probably familiar with the loud, high-pitched whistle they make during takeoff. _D_ But you may be surprised to learn that the sound doesn't come from their beaks - _it_ come from their wings. 7. _A_ In 1869, Antoinette Brown Blackwell published her first book. _B_. She sent a copy to Charles Darwin, whose Origin of Species had taken the world by storm a decade earlier. _C_ Darwin replied at Blackwell personally, thanking her for her book. _D_ Darwin made one mistake in his response, though: His letter was addressed, "Dear Sir." 8. _A_ A German regulator has banned the sale of smartwatches aimed at children, describing them such as spying devices. _B_ It had previously banned an Internet-connected doll for similar reasons. _C_ The regulator urged parents who had such watches to destroy them. _D_ One expert said the decision could be a “game-changer" for Internet-connected devices. 9. _A_ Elephants have a lower incidence of cancer than would be expected statistically, _B_ suggesting that they have evolved ways to protect _itself_ against the disease. _C_ new study reveals how elephants do it: _D_ An old gene that was no longer functional was recycled, enabling them to cull potentially cancerous cells early. 10. _A_ Newcomers to America, according to Eduardo Díaz, are always mindful of two homes: _B_ their community of residence (where they immigrated from) and _C_ their community of origin (where they emigrated from). _D_ To ignore that internal conflict would miss an opportunity to engage with what being an American immigrant truly entails. ## IV Choose the most suitable word or phrase from the list to fill each of the numbered blanks in the passage below. _À la recherche du temps perdu_, ( 1 ) _In Search of Lost Time_ and _Remembrance of Things Past_ in English, is a novel in seven parts by Marcel Proust (1871 – 1922). It was published in French from 1913 to 1927. The novel is the story of Proust's own life, told as an allegorical ( 2 ) truth. It is ( 3 ) one of the greatest works of fiction. In January 1909, Proust experienced the involuntary recall of a childhood memory when he tasted a rusk, which in his novel became a madeleine (a kind of small sponge cake), dipped in tea. In July, he ( 4 ) the world to write his novel, finishing the first draft in September 1912. The first volume, _Du côté de chez Swann_ ( _The Way by Swann's_ ), was ( 5 ) on several occasions, but was finally published at the author's ( 6 ) in November 1913. Proust at this time planned only two further volumes. During the war years, he revised the remainder of his novel, enriching and deepening its feeling, texture, and construction, enhancing the realistic and satirical elements, and tripling its length. In ( 7 ), he transformed it into one of the most profound achievements of the human imagination. In June 1919, the second volume, _À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs_ ( _In the Shadows of Young Girls in Flower_ ) appeared ( 8 ) a reprint of _Swann_. In December 1919, _À l'ombre_ received the ( 9 ) _Prix Goncourt_, which is an annual French literary prize, and Proust suddenly became world-famous. Two more installments appeared in his lifetime. The last three parts of _À la recherche_ were published ( 10 ) in an advanced but not final stage of revision. The first authoritative edition of the entire work was published in 1954. 1. - A also known for - B calling as - C in translation - D translated as 2. - A meaning from - B metaphor to - C search for - D story in 3. - A regarded - B regarded as - C regarded being - D regarded to be 4. - A disappeared away - B faded of - C retired from - D vanished outside 5. - A admitted - B failed - C praised - D refused 6. - A cost - B expense - C fund - D money 7. - A doing - B doing them - C so doing - D that doing 8. - A as soon as - B at the same time on - C in combination - D simultaneously with 9. - A eminence - B famously - C prestigious - D renown 10. - A precedingly - B prematurely - C posthumously - D postmortem ## V Part I: Read the following passage and select the best answer to each question listed below it. Speaking, writing, and signing are the three ways in which a language lives and breathes. They are the three mediums through which a language is passed on from one generation to the next. If a language is a healthy language, this is happening all the time. Parents pass their language on to their children, who pass it on to their children, and the language lives on. Languages like English, Spanish, and Chinese are healthy languages. They exist in spoken, written, and signed forms, and they are used by hundreds of millions of people all over the world. But most of the 6,000 or so of the world's languages aren't in such a healthy state. They are used by very few people. The children aren't learning them from their parents. And as a result the languages are in real danger of dying out. When does a language die? A language dies when the last person who speaks it dies. And this is happening in many parts of the world. There are several dozen languages which have only one speaker left. And several more where the speakers are just a few dozen or fewer. For example, many of the languages spoken by the tribal peoples of Brazil or Indonesia have only a handful of speakers. Languages which have only a few speakers, and which are likely to die out soon, are called endangered languages. Most of the world's endangered languages are spoken in countries on either side of the equator. There are hundreds of languages spoken in Southeast Asia, in such countries as Papua New Guinea. Hundreds more are spoken across India and Africa. Many more are in South America. These are the places where languages are dying out very quickly. But we can find endangered languages anywhere. Most of the Aboriginal languages of Australia are endangered. And so are the Celtic languages of Britain, Ireland, and France. Fewer and fewer people speak Gaelic, the Celtic language of Scotland. And the last native speakers of Manx, the language of the Isle of Man, died out a few decades ago. Perhaps half the languages of the world are going to die out in the next 100 years. That's 3,000 languages disappearing in 1,200 months. If we work out the average, we'll find that there's a language dying out somewhere in the world every two weeks or so. This is much faster than anything that's happened in the past. There's nothing new about a language dying. Languages have always disappeared when the people who spoke them died out. Two thousand years ago there were many languages spoken throughout the Middle East that no longer exist today. Think of all the peoples who invented writing systems, such as the Hittites, the Assyrians, and the Babylonians. Those cultures came and went, over thousands of years, as one defeated another, and the languages disappeared along with the peoples. We know something about these ancient languages because some of them were written down. Unfortunately, many languages of the past were never written down, so they are lost for ever. That's still the case today. About 2,000 of the world's languages have never been written down. If they die before linguists get a chance to record them, they too will be gone for ever. When a culture dies out, it leaves behind evidence of how the people lived. Archaeologists can dig up all sorts of things – pots, skeletons, boats, coins, weapons, bits of houses - but spoken language leaves nothing behind when it disappears. After all, speech is only vibrations in the air. So when a spoken language dies which has never been recorded in some way, it is as if it has never been. There's nothing unusual about a single language dying. But what's going on today is extraordinary when we compare the situation to what has happened in the past. We're seeing languages dying out on a massive scale. It's a bit like what's happening to some species of plants and animals. They're dying out faster than ever before. Why is this? 1. According to the article, a healthy language such as Spanish is usually passed on to the next generation - A if the children learn it at school. - B through either speaking, writing, or signing. - C when it has a signed form in addition to a spoken form. - D with the massive efforts of a few people. 2. According to the article, most languages in the world - A are healthier now than they used to be. - B are in danger of disappearing forever. - C are spoken by a large number of people. - D have only a few native speakers left. 3. The article argues that - A Australia is a place where languages are disappearing quickly. - B endangered languages are likely to be found all over the world. - C Manx, the language of the Isle of Man, is in danger of disappearing. - D the writing system invented by the Hittites is still widely used today. 4. According to the article, - A about 2,000 of the world's languages have already died out. - B around half of all the world's languages have not yet been written down. - C at least one language is likely to disappear in the world every month. - D none of the languages spoken two thousand years ago are used today. 5. According to the article, the situation today is unusual in that - A archaeologists are digging up all sorts of ancient valuable things. - B cultures as well as languages are dying out faster than ever before. - C languages are disappearing together with some species of plants and animals. - D languages are dying out at an astonishing rate. ## V Part II: Read the following passage and select the best answer to each question listed below it. You're probably familiar with the work of Louis Pasteur, the 19th century French chemist and biologist. He developed a process for killing microbes in milk and wine. And his ideas led to the understanding that tiny organisms caused certain diseases. "He's considered the great helper of mankind,” said Dr. Joseph Gal, professor at the University of Colorado. But before all that, Pasteur was an artist. And without his early creative explorations, he may not have made one of his biggest, but least talked about, discoveries in science. As a teenager, Pasteur created portraits. But after his father encouraged him to choose a more serious profession - one that would feed him - he became a scientist. At the age of 24 he would discover chirality. To understand chirality, consider two objects held up before a mirror: A white cue ball from a pool table and your hand. The reflection of the ball is exactly like the original. But with your hand, no matter how much you tried, the mirror image would never fit into the original. Some molecules are like cue balls an exact image of each other. But others are like hands - the mirror-opposite image of each other. Hands, like the crystals Pasteur would eventually discover, are chiral. And that discovery came down to an accident during winemaking. In 1819, factory workers boiled wine too long and accidentally produced an acid, which had unique properties that interested Pasteur. When studying this acid, Pasteur found that it produced two kinds of crystals — each the mirror opposite of the other. The crystals were handed, or chiral (derived from the Greek word kheir for hand). Chemistry changed forever. So why did this young chemist get it right? Dr. Gal thinks the answer might lie in Pasteur's passion for art. Even as a scientist, Pasteur remained closely connected to it. He taught classes on how chemistry could be used in art. He even carried around a notebook, taking notes about artwork he visited. And then Dr. Gal stumbled upon a letter Pasteur had written to his parents about a lithographic portrait he had made of a friend. Making a lithographic portrait involves carving a drawing into stone, and pressing a piece of paper on top of it. The picture on the paper is a mirror image of the drawing left on the stone. In his letter, Pasteur wrote: "I think I have not produced anything as well drawn. But I greatly fear that on the paper the portrait will not be as good as on the stone; this is what always happens." That's it! "Isn't this the explanation of how he saw the handedness on the crystals because he was used to that as an artist?” Dr. Gal proposed. "Many objects in our universe have this property of chirality,” said Dr. Gal. In the mirror, in wine heated too long, on a piece of stone and in your body: The opposite hands of the universe were discovered by a man who wanted to be an artist, but settled for science. 1. What is suggested about Louis Pasteur? - A His theory caused diseases by tiny organisms. - B His life's work contributed a lot to the human race. - C His research focused entirely on the making of wine. - D His procedure boosts microbe numbers in milk. 2. Why was Louis Pasteur encouraged to choose “a more serious profession"? - A Working as a scientist could not have been easy. - B The serious professions were not respected in those days. - C A life as an artist would not have been financially stable. - D Pasteur's father did not expect to be supported by his son. 3. Based on the article, which statement is TRUE? - A Pasteur was a ninth century chemist and biologist. - B Cue balls, like the crystals Pasteur discovered, are chiral. - C Milk contains no crystal types that mirror each other. - D Many objects display the property of chirality. 4. Based on the article, which statement is FALSE? - A A chiral object's mirror image will not fit exactly into the original. - B Pasteur thinks portraits on stone are worse than those on paper. - C Boiling wine for far too long leads to the production of an acid. - D It is possible that art made Pasteur familiar with handedness. 5. What is meant by stating that Louis Pasteur “settled for science"? - A A career as a scientist was not Pasteur's first choice. - B Pasteur's father was influential only to a certain degree. - C The author feels Pasteur was better off as an artist. - D It was a challenge for Pasteur to accept art over science.