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I was reading a short news article on students taking entrance exams in Japan, and it listed the number of students from the prefecture who took what test.

Here is the excerpt I had a question about:

、、、、受験者数は、地理歴史・公民（１）２０５１人、同（２）４８０４人、、、、

It goes on to list subjects and give the number of people taking the test.

I know 同 is used to like "the above-mentioned [blank]", usually about a group or organization, but here I think it's referencing to the subjects. I'm a little hesitant on the (1) and (2) parts.

What I think it says is this that 2051 people are taking the 地理{ちり}歴史{れきし} (geography and history) and 4804 people are taking 公民{こうみん} (civics). What I don't understand is why 地理歴史・公民 has to be broken up like it is. All the other subjects are listed individually (including separating "foreign language" and "English listening").

So my question is two-fold. A) Did I understand it correctly, and B) Why was it written like it was?

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「地理歴史・公民」is a group of subjects which includes「世界史Ａ」、「世界史Ｂ」、「日本史Ａ」、「日本史Ｂ」、「地理Ａ」、「地理Ｂ」、「現代社会」、「倫理」、「政治・経済」、「倫理、政治･経済」.

(1) and (2) show how many of these each student chose.

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  • Woooah, that's a lot of subjects, no wonder they didn't list them all... – silvermaple Jan 16 '12 at 23:23
  • Is it common to abbreviate “地理歴史・公民 (1科目受験)” as “地理歴史・公民 (1)”? If I were reading the newspaper article in question, I would not understand its meaning! – Tsuyoshi Ito Jan 17 '12 at 0:45
  • yozemi.ac.jp/nyushi/joho/12/center_henko/index.html blog.livedoor.jp/dg_law/archives/51989960.html 最近変更されたようです・・ – user1016 Jan 17 '12 at 5:12
  • I know that they changed the system this year. But I only saw “地理歴史・公民 (1科目受験),” and if the author of the newspaper article abbreviated it as “地理歴史・公民 (1),” it seems to me like a terrible invention by the author. I am still unconvinced that it really means that. – Tsuyoshi Ito Jan 17 '12 at 6:19
  • 新聞のどっか端っこに（注）があるべきかもしれませんね・・・ – user1016 Jan 17 '12 at 6:35

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