Ease of Use:
I think it’s pretty self-explanatory. It comes with a red sheet to cover up the words in red, but honestly I’m not sure what’s the point like on the first pages of each section.
Content:
I thought it was alright. The passages are pretty difficult and lot of passages relate to some plant or animal species or science-related topic. The explanations are really wordy though, and the translations could be simplified a lot in my opinion. It can be awkward at times. The book is not that long though compared to many N2 textbooks.
Structure:
It is broken into 3 chapters: Chapter 1 has 9 sections, Chapter 2 has 5 sections, and Chapter 3 has 12 sections.
Each section starts with some info/tips on how to read an essay, email, instruction manual, etc, and then there is an example passage. After, there are 2-4 practices passages to try to read and answer the questions.
At the end of each chapter, they have a list of idiomatic expressions.
Interactive:
Yes, because there are a lot of essays and 1-2 MC test questions for each.
Overall:
To be honest, I felt that most of the notes and tips about how to read essays I already knew from the Kanzen Master N3読解 or just from prior knowledge, so I felt it wasn’t that helpful for me. I think what was helpful was doing the practice problems. The essays are quite difficult and long sometimes. I did one section every time I used this book, so I read 4 passages and answered associated questions. Towards the end, I found that I could get a lot of questions correct, even if I had only a 40-50% understanding of the text. (I’m not a great test-taker, so that’s a good sign.)
Overall, I don’t know whether or not to recommend this textbook. I wouldn’t say it’s an unhelpful book by any means, but just personally the notes/tips weren’t as helpful as I wished it to be and that’s what I was looking for. I guess it depends on your prior knowledge whether or not this book will be insightful or not.
I hope this review was helpful.
framed in beige 