N5–N1 Passage Grammar (文章の文法)

How the question works

Instead of one isolated sentence, you read a connected paragraph with a blank in it. The four options are often all grammatical in the blank by themselves — what decides the answer is the surrounding context: what came before, how the sentences connect, whose action it is, and where the writer is going next.

This is why it feels harder than the single-sentence grammar section even when the grammar points are familiar: you have to read the whole passage, not just the line with the blank.

Strategy & common traps

Read the entire passage once before you choose anything, so you know the overall situation and tone. Then, at each blank, ask what relationship the sentence has with the ones around it — reason, contrast, sequence, conclusion — and pick the connective or ending that matches. The classic trap is an option that fits the local sentence but contradicts the paragraph's direction (a "because" where the flow needs a "even though").

Watch perspective and politeness across the passage too: giving/receiving verbs (くれる・もらう・いただく), and modal endings (はず・つもり・そうだ) all depend on who is acting and how certain the writer is — details that only the full context makes clear.

About this N5–N1 drill

These 18 questions are built from short original passages written for N5–N1, each with several grammar blanks. The distractors are grammar points learners genuinely confuse in context, and every answer links to the full guide for that point — so a miss takes you straight to the explanation.

At N4 (9 questions)

At N4 the passage is short and the blanks test basic connectives and giving/receiving forms in context.

At N3 (9 questions)

At N3 the passage is longer and the blanks turn on discourse flow — contrast, cause, and the writer's stance across sentences.