The KanKen Chronicles - Printable Version

The KanKen Chronicles - Printable Version

+- kanji koohii FORUM (http://forum.koohii.com)
+-- Forum: Learning Japanese (http://forum.koohii.com/forum-4.html)
+--- Forum: General discussion (http://forum.koohii.com/forum-8.html)
+--- Thread: The KanKen Chronicles (/thread-4261.html)

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

The KanKen Chronicles - erlog - 2013-02-28

I'm so sorry, but could you e-mail me again? I just realized that I hadn't updated my e-mail address on this site since I first signed up in 2007. That was a university address, and I've since graduated. So I just changed it. ごめんなさい。

The KanKen Chronicles - erlog - 2013-07-09

I haven't updated here in a while, and I just got an e-mail with a question today. So I thought I'd post something.

Unfortunately I couldn't take 準1級 and 2級 at the big public June KanKen this time around like I had planned. I actually had a gig that day doing interpreting for some foreign press at the Japanese Games Music Festival in Tokyo. Life stuff is starting to progress for me in a big way, and that's conflicting with how I was planning to take KanKen.

Instead, I signed up for 準1級 anyway because they mail you a copy of the test afterward even if you're not there to take it in person. I have not cracked a single book for that level of the test yet, and last time I took it I got a comedy score of 10%. So it's not like I was screwing myself out of passing anyway. I can give myself an accurate failing score taking the mailed copy of the test on my own time just as well as the KanKen foundation can. Getting real experience interpreting is WAAAAY more important anyway.

For 2級, I decided to take it on a computer instead of at the public test day. This is called CBT(computer-based testing) on their website, and is super convenient. You got to an affiliated computer lab, and can take the test pretty much whenever you want. Most labs run the test a few times a week, and even on weird days like Thursday or Saturday. So I stuck to the schedule I had posted before, but just took the test through CBT instead of on the public test day.

One of the benefits of this is that I get the test results in 10 days instead of the usual wait time, and so I'll be able to post my results next week. Shockingly, for the first time in my history with KanKen, I have no idea if I passed or not. You can't take the exam with you after CBT so it's impossible to score it yourself later. I also was really ぎりぎり
with the practice test scores I was getting, and actually have not passed a practice test of that level in KanKen DS3 yet.

On a real past test on the Friday before I took the real thing I was 5 points shy(2.5%) of passing. Certain sections of the test this time felt harder and certain sections felt easier. 四字熟語 and synonyms/antonyms are real hard, and those will be my focus if I do fail.

The problem with the DS game is that the practice tests in it are not comprehensive in the same way the actual test is. I would venture about 25% of the actual 2級 exam actually comes from the 準2級 level. In the game, though, I think those practice tests are comprised of the new material only. This, in effect, makes KanKen DS3 harder than the actual test for the 2級 level. All the other levels have been really accurate, but this level feels different.

I plan to study for 準1級 for October, but I doubt I'll get a passing score then. I'll be real happy if I can get 50% in October, and then have a roadmap to pass it for real in February. I'll post again next week when I get my CBT results.

Quote:Hi erlog! I just found your thread today and was really excited that so many people here have more or less aced these tests already and I'm so envious!

I'm worried about the whole 書き取り, did you just brute forced the kanji after RTK or did you use some other method? Coming from RTK myself I can see myself doing this, but I was just wondering if there was a more effective やりかた.

Cheers!

I got this e-mail today, and I've decided to answer it here since other people might find the answer helpful.

I did not go directly from RTK to doing KanKen. I had been building my knowledge of kanji readings beforehand by doing reading practice in Anki with the Kanji in Context textbook, and also passed JLPT N1 before I ever started considering taking KanKen. KanKen for me was a way to solidify my kanji knowledge in a comprehensive way that I could also put on a resume.

Even though I took that path, doing KanKen studying right after RTK is completely viable. 10級 is only the first 80 kanji + katakana. The step up between the levels is quite gradual, and really could help you build reading/kanji writing ability. The only trouble is that because the levels are so gradual it's not quite as efficient to do it that way. You might also have trouble with reading the sentences in the test material well enough to be able to answer the questions.

If you're fine with going at a slow/steady pace then working from KanKen is okay. If you want to improve faster then doing a sentence reading pack like Core6k first, and then moving to KanKen around 5級 or 6級 later might work better for you. I would not really recommend Kanji in Context now since I think Core6k or Core10k actually have higher quality/more challenging/more interesting sentences. KiC is like eye-meltingly dry.

The KanKen Chronicles - partner55083777 - 2013-07-09

What's the computerized test like? How do you write the kanji?

The KanKen Chronicles - erlog - 2013-07-09

The computer test is the same as the paper version, but answering the questions is handled slightly differently. The test is broken up into a keyboard section and a tablet section. Anything you enter in just hiragana or multiple choice katakana is in that keyboard section. Once you're finished with that you move on to the tablet section, and cannot go back to anything in that keyboard section. You can skip around freely within those respective sections, though.

The tablet is a small Wacom LCD tablet with a stylus. You have a pen tool, an erase tool, and a button that erases the entire field. You draw your kanji, hit the okay button on the tablet LCD, and then it appears as your answer on the main computer screen.

The entire process feels a little clunky, but it's not terrible. The convenience of being able to take the test like once a week, and getting the results super fast definitely outweighs some of the tablet weirdness. The eraser is pretty worthless because of strange accuracy issues, and so I usually ended up just resetting the whole field to draw the entire kanji again.

It does take some getting used to, but that's kind of made up for by the fact that the keyboard section goes so quickly since you can generally type on a keyboard way faster than you can legibly write hiragana/katakana.

Here's the official PDF explanation of it from the KanKen website:
http://www.kanken.or.jp/kanken/cbt/data/cbt_cbtsetsumei.pdf

The KanKen Chronicles - youasuki - 2013-07-09

@erlog Thanks for replying! What about sharing-the-deck part? ^^
So you did nothing special for the 書き取り part, ok cool Smile

The KanKen Chronicles - partner55083777 - 2013-07-09

Thanks for the detailed writeup.

I plan on working up to at least 準２級, but I was planning on skipping the earlier tests because it would be embarrassing to take the test with a bunch of elementary school kids. But I guess it wouldn't be so bad to do it at a place like this! Maybe I'll try to work up from 7級 instead!

The KanKen Chronicles - erlog - 2013-07-09

youasuki Wrote:@erlog Thanks for replying! What about sharing-the-deck part? ^^
So you did nothing special for the 書き取り part, ok cool

The only special thing I did was reverse all the reading questions, and enter them as 書き取り questions instead. This means that readings can take a little longer to sink into your brain than otherwise, but that's a small price to pay for having the 書き取り section be your best section every time you take the test.

We'll sort out whatever deck sharing thing we do through e-mail. I'll contact you about that tomorrow.

partner55083777 Wrote:Thanks for the detailed writeup.

I plan on working up to at least 準２級, but I was planning on skipping the earlier tests because it would be embarrassing to take the test with a bunch of elementary school kids. But I guess it wouldn't be so bad to do it at a place like this! Maybe I'll try to work up from 7級 instead!

The lowest I took in person was 4級. Those low level tests actually have quite a few adults in the room too. Those levels are so cheap that many parents opt to take the exam with their kids. It's also not uncommon to see grandparents there too. Like 20% of the people in the exam room were adults when I went.

Nobody really seemed to care, and nobody ever mentioned it.

The thing about those low levels of the test is that they really aren't worth the money or the hassle. Depending on your already-existing level of Japanese you might be able to fly through 1 level per week. I think it took me 3 months to go from 10級 to 6級. In that time I only would have been able to take the test like once a month due to the test scheduling. It is available multiple times a week, but you have to book it at least 3 weeks in advance. At those low levels it's very possible that would make taking that level of the test for real completely not worth it because you've already worked your way up to a higher level between the time you applied and the time you actually took the test.

The KanKen Chronicles - partner55083777 - 2013-07-09

erlog Wrote:The thing about those low levels of the test is that they really aren't worth the money or the hassle. Depending on your already-existing level of Japanese you might be able to fly through 1 level per week. I think it took me 3 months to go from 10級 to 6級. In that time I only would have been able to take the test like once a month due to the test scheduling. It is available multiple times a week, but you have to book it at least 3 weeks in advance. At those low levels it's very possible that would make taking that level of the test for real completely not worth it because you've already worked your way up to a higher level between the time you applied and the time you actually took the test.

That's a really good point. After I really start studying I'll have to see how it goes.

The KanKen Chronicles - erlog - 2013-07-11

I got another question through e-mail that I'll answer here so that everyone may benefit from it.

Quote:I would just like to know what your models/templates look like if possible.

Since KanKen has many different types of questions, my card model is very generalized. I also started this deck back in Anki 1 before some of the fancier features were available, and so the structure is very flat. Each note is a single card, and the cloze-deletion is manual.

My cards have the following fields:
Expression - The standard card front content such as a cloze-deleted sentence.
Reading - The standard card front with furigana.
Answer - Whatever the answer to the card is. This field is empty if the card is simply testing reading.
Question Type - There's many different question types in KanKen so this tells me what to do with the card when it comes up. This corresponds to which test section the card is from.
Level - This is which level of KanKen and which step of the step book the question is from. This allows me to go back later to double-check for typos if need be. For example, "準2級-24"
Note ID - This field is autogenerated by the NoteID plugin for Anki 2. If I export to Excel I can use this as my key in the database. It allows me to roundtrip data back and forth between Anki/Excel while maintaining the scheduling of the cards I want to update.

My card fronts look like this:

書き取り

（サイタマ）県から都内に通学する。

My card backs look like this:

（サイタマ）県[けん]から都内[とない]に通学[つうがく]する。

Answer: 埼玉

Front styling code is like this:

Code:

<span class=QuestionType>{{Question Type}}</span><br><br>

{{Expression}}

Back styling code is like this:

Code:

{{FrontSide}}

<hr id=answer>

{{#Reading}}{{furigana:Reading}}<br>{{/Reading}}{{^Reading}}

{{Expression}}</br>{{/Reading}}<br>

{{#Answer}}Answer: {{Answer}}{{/Answer}}

The fancy stuff on the Reading and Answer lines is so that those things are only included on the back of the card if they aren't blank. That <hr> tag there is so that you get the pretty horizontal line between the front side and back side of the card when it appears.

The KanKen Chronicles - erlog - 2013-07-15

I got my KanKen results! All the test materials said it would take about 10 days, but I got my results in a week.

I failed by 4 points, and that's exactly the kind of feeling I had after taking the test. From here I'm just going to continue practicing in KanKen DS3, and make flashcards for anything I miss that's in the game but not already in my flashcards.

My next try at it is going to be in August or September sometime, and that's enough time to practice alot on the DS. I'm on the right track. I just need to work on a few blind spots. It's probably better this way anyway. If I had passed by a small margin then I might want to take it again to make sure I've really mastered the material for that level.

With the other test levels I usually had like 10-15% over the score I needed to pass, and that's kind of what I want for 2級 as well. If I had passed with a score of 156 then I'd feel conflicted about moving on to 準1級 material.

Here's what the test results look like when you get them:

I knew by the tiny envelope that I had failed.

The KanKen Chronicles - Forthem - 2013-07-16

四字熟語・意味のもあるんだ... What's that section like? I've found my worst sections to be the 誤字訂正 and the 対義語／類義語 ones by far ^^;

And congrats on getting such a high score though! 後もう少しだ ♪　頑張れ ♪

The KanKen Chronicles - Katsuo - 2013-07-16

erlog Wrote:You can't take the exam with you after CBT so it's impossible to score it yourself later.

In the public test of course, not only can you take the question sheet home but within a week they also post you a clean copy along with the answer sheet.

For the CBT do they send you the questions or answers later? If not, the detailed "0X–" breakdown on the result sheet doesn't seem that helpful.

The KanKen Chronicles - erlog - 2013-07-16

The 四字熟語・意味 section gives you 5 sentences that are the meanings of 5 different 四字熟語 from the 四字熟語・書き取り section, and then you have to match them together. So the answers to the previous section become your word bank to match from for this section that tests understanding meanings. It sounds real crazy and real difficult, but it's actually not. It's very easily guessable through process of elimination even for 四字熟語 you've never seen before because usually the smattering of 四字熟語 in that section are not at all similar in meaning to one another.

The 誤字訂正 questions are something that just gets better with more exposure and experience. I'm usually better at them than the average Japanese person because, as a foreigner, things that aren't how I learned them stick out to me. It's like a non-native speaker of English being able to spot spelling mistakes a bit easier because they're actually paying attention to the arrangement of letters in words rather than chunking everything together.

The 対義語・類義語 is usually not great for me, though. With other things like reading/writing you have a whole sentence to function as context. With your only context being "vaguely similar" or "vaguely opposite" it becomes real hard to locate the kanji word you need in your head. The only thing that makes that section doable is being able to use process of elimination to figure out which readings go where.

At a certain point, unless you're super super deficient in one specific section, I'm not sure how worth it is to spend more energy on that stuff unless you're not already studying. Like 30% of KanKen questions are useless trivia anyway.

Katsuo Wrote:
erlog Wrote:You can't take the exam with you after CBT so it's impossible to score it yourself later.
In the public test of course, not only can you take the question sheet home but within a week they also post you a clean copy along with the answer sheet.

For the CBT do they send you the questions or answers later? If not, the detailed "0X–" breakdown on the result sheet doesn't seem that helpful.

Unfortunately with CBT they do not send you a copy of the test later. That's the one thing that kind of makes it a pain, but it's not a super big deal considering you get your test results in a week. You'll also be able to remember pretty well which things you completely spaced, and as long as you jot it down after the test before you forget it then you're fine.

For the public test, they'll even send you the test even if you didn't bother to show up! That actually made it totally worth it for me to pay for 準1級 even though I had a schedule conflict that made me not be able to take it.

The KanKen Chronicles - Sebastian - 2013-07-16

erlog Wrote:For the public test, they'll even send you the test even if you didn't bother to show up! That actually made it totally worth it for me to pay for 準1級 even though I had a schedule conflict that made me not be able to take it.

Is there anybody that would mind uploading past Kanken tests and answers?

The KanKen Chronicles - Forthem - 2013-07-17

I don't know how helpful it is, but you can see a bunch of past tests for the different levels at the official kanken site:

http://www.kanken.or.jp/kanken/outline/degree/example.html

It's updated every once in awhile (usually after a test has been administered) with a new set of previous tests. Smile

The KanKen Chronicles - greatfool - 2013-07-25

I am a latecomer to this thread, but I skimmed it all and was immediately inspired to start studying/ playing Kanken DS3.

My goal right now is to get through the joyo kanji, which I theoretically know all of, and start learning the new kanji at 1.5 and 1級 as soon as possible. I've gotten to 4級 by using the renshu.org kanji kentei lessons and vocabulary lessons as refreshers.

I just wanted to ask for those who have passed or studied for 準１級 are there any recommended study methods? I haven't done RTK3 but I think it wouldn't make sense to do at this point because the coverage wouldn't match the test necessarily. I noticed the カバー率 book link earlier and plan to buy that, but is there anything else to get before leaving Japan (soon)?

The KanKen Chronicles - erlog - 2013-07-25

RTK3 does overlap about 80% with that level of KanKen. Then you can kind of roll your own for the extra 150-200 or so characters. You could also just roll your own RTK-style thing from the official list. After doing all of RTK1, that shouldn't be a problem.

I did the first option because that is the same process I used for all the other kanji, and using the existing RTK3 Anki deck was convenient. RTK-style was for initial learning, and then KanKen study was for solidifying readings/vocabulary.

That カバー book is probably the best thing to get since it's compact, and will apparently get you most of the way there. That combined with the KanKen game should be enough.

The KanKen Chronicles - greatfool - 2013-07-26

I had no idea it overlapped that much. I guess its easier to use RTK3 then to get things in a more logical radical order and have the ANKI deck.

Its really encouraging to hear that that level might be feasible with the right tools. Of course I'm anticipating some serious stumbling blocks around 2.5 or 2 since there must be a reason they give it to Japanese students at the end of high school and not everyone (most?) passes.

The KanKen Chronicles - partner55083777 - 2013-10-01

How's everyone doing with their Kanken studying?

I finally got around to finishing RTK, so I'm just about to start studying Kanken, but before that I want to study the 部首.

Does anyone know of a good 部首 deck that is geared towards the type of information that is on the Kanken? I'm thinking I need to know (部首 → 部首name) and then reverse, (部首name → 部首). I was thinking it would also be helpful to get (部首 → meaning) as well, but maybe this wouldn't be as important.

Example:
部首 → 部首name：艹 → くさかんむり
部首name → 部首：くさかんむり → 艹
部首 → meaning: 艹 → 植物に関することを示す。樹木ではない植物、特に草本植物との関わりから派生した字を作っている。

The KanKen Chronicles - AdmiralKelvinator - 2013-11-15

Been studying the ２級 Kanken using the DS game for about 3 months now and man it is brutal. A huge leap from 準２級 even if the number of Kanji tested isn't dramatically greater. For 準２級 it seemed sufficient to know 3 or 4 common vocabulary for each character, but ２級 throws obscure variant readings; abnormal, one-shot radicals; idioms; and technical Buddhist, Kabuki and baseball (!) terminology into the mix. Plus the passing line goes from 60% to 80% which is like adding insult to injury. I had to see about 30% of the total 準２級 questions in the DS game before I could pass it reliably; by contrast I've now covered more than half of the total 二級 material and I still can't pass it with any regularity.

Like some others here, when I finished RTK I thought "Maybe I'll try to pass the kanken. After all, I can now write all the characters on the test, so how hard could it be?" Big mistake. As someone else in this thread mentioned, the Kanken (especially at the 準２級 and ２級　level) is much more of a vocabulary test than a test of simple Kanji recognition.

For those of you currently studying for the ２級, how do you keep your motivation up when so much of what you are studying seems like useless kanji trivia? Has anyone here actually passed it in real life?

The KanKen Chronicles - dizmox - 2013-11-15

Well the upper levels are specifically for people who like learning lots of uncommon kanji and vocabulary for fun. If that's not interesting to you then you don't need to do it...

I'd like to study 2kyuu and above but I feel it's putting the cart before the horse to focus on that before getting the other areas of proficiency to native level.

The KanKen Chronicles - Forthem - 2013-11-16

I passed the 2級 test last month at my school, and while I'd definitely agree that it's pretty brutal for non-native speakers of Japanese, I think it's a great measure to see exactly how far you actually are in your Japanese studies. I teach mainly at elementary and middle schools here in Japan and every year there are a few middle schoolers who pass the test without much prior studying (other than usual school work and being the kids that enjoy reading for pleasure). You need 70% to pass 準２級 which goes up to 80% to pass 2級 and that certainly raises the bar a bit, but it's not impossible. When you get to the high school level even more people pass the exam.

My main motivation so far is to try to be as good at Japanese as a middle schooler lol. But beyond that, as a few people have mentioned, it really is a good way to boost your Japanese vocabulary. When I was studying for the 準２級 I remember how surprised I was by just how often a lot of the words I had been studying came up in my everyday life. While a lot of stuff on the test might seem like "useless knowledge" I've yet to look up an unknown word preparing for the test and find that I didn't know the corresponding English one's meaning. Ultimately I want to get as close as possible to knowing Japanese as well as I know my native language.

I sometimes use the DS game as well (especially for review when it gets close to test time!), but I'd recommend actually reading native Japanese material as well if you really want to put what you've been studying to the test. Generally you'll be able remember things better the more exposure you have to it, and you get the added bonus of enjoying a plethora of stuff that's not necessarily readily available in your native language Big Grin

The KanKen Chronicles - erlog - 2013-11-18

I agree with Forthem. 2級 takes time to prepare for, but it's definitely not at the level of "so obscure you'll never use it" like 準1級 and 1級 are. 2級 is all the general use kanji and common vocabulary. Most of it you'll see in a newspaper from time to time for sure.

If there's other things that make more sense to focus on then that's fine, but there's no better test than 漢検 for expanding vocabulary. It's also very possible to pass as a foreigner, provided that you put in the time. I missed passing 2級 over the summer by 4 points, and I plan to take it again soon.

There is one thing I would like to correct in Forthem's post, though. 2級 is aimed at students who are about to finish high school. Normal middle schoolers are definitely not at 2級 level, but I do believe you that you've seen a handful of very well-read middle schoolers pass. I just know that kind of thing is definitely not the norm, though.

I teach both middle schoolers and high schoolers, and I would say that the vast majority are somewhere in between 4級 and 3級. People who went to college probably float around 準2級 in their daily life. They could probably pass 2級 with some moderate amount of review and practice.

The KanKen Chronicles - erlog - 2014-06-16

Okay, it's been a while since I posted an update here. I took KanKen 2級 two more times.

In January I took it again without really having studied any new information, and I ended up getting a slightly worse score. I was hoping to have some good luck, and get an easy batch of test questions. That didn't happen. It was a stupid plan, and I wasn't even passing the practice tests in KanKen DS3.

During my break at school in March I decided to hack around with KanKen DS3, and I discovered I could automagically pull the test questions into Anki from the game. That took a week or two of development time, and then I sat on it for a while marvelling at what I had done. I didn't really know how to make use of all the new cards because 80% of them were repeats of what I had already typed in manually.

In May I realized I hadn't taken the test in a while, and so I decided to sign up for the test again. I also discovered that Anki has a "Find duplicates" function that can operate on any card field. I had continued practicing using the KanKen DS3 software properly, and I noticed that my 類義語・対義語 skills were terrible, and exacerbated a little bit by how that DS game handles those questions.

So I separated out just those questions, threw away the duplicates, and spent 2 days studying the 190 or so new pairs that came from that. That section then became pretty trivial, and last weekend I passed a practice test for 2級 in KanKen DS3 for the first time. Building on my success there, I quickly did the same thing for the 読み and 書き取り questions. After a few more days I started passing the practice tests consistently, and my skill graph evened out a bit.

I took KanKen 2級 again yesterday, and it really feels like I might have passed this time. Unlike before, it didn't feel like I had completely bombed any of the sections. I was also really sure of a lot of my answers, and a lot of the crazier vocabulary that I studied last minute actually did come up on the test. So I felt like there was less guessing going on.

I should get my results by next Monday, and I'll make sure to post them here. If I fail again then I'm going to concentrate hard on 四字熟語, and trawl through a separate 問題集 I bought that breaks down the test questions in to sections depending on how often they come up on the test.

Here's what the stats page looks like for my KanKen journey in Anki. It's about 15,000 cards encompassing 5級, 4級, 3級, 準2級, and 2級.

[Image: ui4JR5n.png]

The KanKen Chronicles - mezbup - 2014-06-16

Thats insane dude. Congrats! Can you do a write up of how you stripped the data from the NDS rom into Anki? I'm sure others would find it useful. I recently did the same thing for on a Japanese DS rom for some Korean study to rip 300 example sentences.