What is the Japanese equivalent for A-Levels and GSCEs?

Question:

Answer:

There is no real equivalent; but for a ferocious test the students have to pass, each university has its own entrance exam, and the requirements are for the most part just feeding back information. Students in Japan spend countless hours stuffing facts and figures into their heads with little analysis
or practical use. Thus you have students memorizing huge vocab lists in English but they are largely incapable of holding a basic conversation. Cram schools are separate schools for students trying to get into the better universities, and they are pretty much assisting students to just pass the exams. Japan's education works better for math and sciences, but less for the humanities, and it demonstrates that memorizing is not the same thing as learning. Unfortunately, even if you get into the university that you want, for over a decade Japan has been in an economic coma and there are many students who don't have a lot of good job choices when they graduate.