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?