Exam facts
This is one of the basic academic subjects and can be taken in Japanese or English.
- Time
- 80 minutes.
- Scope
- Three parts: politics/economics/society, geography, and history.
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EXAM KNOWLEDGE MAP
This subject tests basic understanding of contemporary society and logical judgment, not volume of memorization. Chapters 1–16 map strictly onto the syllabus's three parts, chapter 17 handles this subject's real difficulty — figures and options — and chapter 18 covers institution names, era names, and katakana place names.
Organized strictly by the three parts of JASSO's 2026 syllabus; official items are not copied, and current affairs appear only where they bear directly on institutions.
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FINAL REVIEW BOARD
This is one of the basic academic subjects and can be taken in Japanese or English.
Any of these can appear verbatim as an option.
Nearly all lost marks on figures come from these three.
QUICK REFERENCE
Twelve chapters on politics, economics, and society, two on geography, two on history, plus twelve data- and language-reading methods.
SOLVING METHODS
Keep reading, calculation, verification, and review procedures in one place. Choose the format, then check only the steps you need.
SYLLABUS AT A GLANCE
The principles of democracy, social contract theory, the rule of law, separation of powers, and categories of rights.
The three principles, the symbolic emperor, Article 9, the Diet, the cabinet, and the courts.
Electoral systems, parties, public opinion, local autonomy, rights of direct demand, and vote disparity.
Sovereign states, international law, the UN, the Security Council, the Cold War, disarmament, and Japanese diplomacy.
Scarcity, demand and supply, the price mechanism, market failure, monopoly, and the development of capitalism.
Households, forms of enterprise, the joint-stock company, government, social responsibility, and SMEs.
GDP, the three-approach identity, growth rates, cycles, inflation and deflation, and flows versus stocks.
The functions of money, direct and indirect finance, the Bank of Japan, monetary policy, and credit creation.
The three fiscal functions, direct and indirect taxes, automatic stabilizers, government bonds, and the four pillars.
Postwar reform, high growth, the oil crises, the bubble, industrial structure, and agriculture.
Comparative advantage, free versus protected trade, exchange rates, the balance of payments, the WTO, and the North-South divide.
Environment, resources and energy, private law and consumer protection, employment, the information society, and peace.
Plates and landforms, rivers and coasts, climate classification, vegetation and soils, disasters, and maps.
Population structure, urbanization, farming systems, industrial location, world regions, and the geography of Japan.
The Industrial Revolution, the bourgeois revolutions, imperialism, the Meiji Restoration, and modernization in Asia.
The First World War and Versailles, the Depression, the Second World War, the postwar order, decolonization, and globalization.
Reading statistics and maps, chronological ordering, elimination, judging scope, and pacing.
Institution names, era conversion, katakana place names, question phrasing, statistical units, and historical vocabulary.
OFFICIAL REFERENCE