抄録
This paper analyzed the different aspects of polysemous words used in the National Nurse's Examination which tests the general knowledge of nurses. Out of the 36,119 words that appeared in the six examinational, the study mainly focused on 25,269 words that are found in Second Edition Shincho Contemporary Japanese Dictionary by Yamada Toshio. The results reveal that words used with multiple meanings cover 25% of the words that were analyzed. However, words that have multiple meanings but were used with its primary meaning sum up to 20% of the words analyzed. Moreover, words that are used with multiple meanings cover up to 97% of the standard vocabulary below the level 2 Japanese Language Proficiency Test. Taken together, the results suggest the importance of learning the vocabularies and its multiple meanings below the level 2 of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test in order to fully comprehend the questions and problems in the National Nurse's Examination.
