I just took the jlpt in San Francisco. It was my first time taking the JLPT, so I wasn't sure what to expect, especially for the listening section. I was pretty surprised that it was done by playing a cd from a player up in the front of the class vs. having headphones like many other standardized tests use. So during the listening section, the person to my right began having several coughing fits. He hadn't coughed at all during the previous sections, so in addition to being distracted, I was caught off guard by it and didn't know what to do.

The test proctor seemed to notice and was looking at the man, and saw me giving her a look, but she didn't do anything. I considered raising my hand right as the next question was about to start, but thought back to the beginning of the test where they instructed that if we have any problems to raise our hands and somebody will quietly come over and talk to you. I imagined the proctor coming over, without pausing the cd, and talking to me while the next question was playing. The last thing I wanted was to miss a few more questions on the listening quiz because of that.

Has anyone had experiences with this, or any other type of disturbance during the listening section? Do they ever pause the CD or replay a question?

If you've got a problem then speak up! Of course they won't play the questions again if nobody says anything. Next time raise your hand or just say "hey I can't hear anything because this guys coughing".

I had people literally giving away answers in N5 and N4 by giggling and gasping at answers, so for N3, I got a doctor's note to get my own room through special accommodations.

prink Wrote:I had people literally giving away answers in N5 and N4 by giggling and gasping at answers, so for N3, I got a doctor's note to get my own room through special accommodations.

You can do that? Do you need to have a preexisting condition or something?

You'd either have to have ADD or find a pretty lax therapist. The first person I went to gave it to me no problem, but I've heard other people have had trouble doing so.

Ughhh, that sounds really annoying! I have some slight hearing loss, so not having headphones for this part of the test would not be good for me. It doesn't affect me most of the time, but in situations where people whisper, or dialogue in a movie that was not recorded well/mumbling, I can't understand sometimes. A CD player at the front of the classroom.....seriously? This is something for me to keep in mind if I ever take the test. I might need to get a note from my ENT doctor.

I hope you still did well on the test with the distraction!

The biggest problem with that listening section is that proctors don't really give a shit about audio quality in general. So they get these giant speakers for what tend to be pretty small rooms, and then turn them up way too loud so it's echoing real bad too. They turn it up real loud ostensibly so "everyone can hear better" when, in fact, having stuff up real loud like that makes it harder to understand.

I should treat it like a concert, and bring earplugs next time to see if it helps. Plugging one ear with a finger helped me understand what was being said better.

[Zgarbas]

...I've never heard of a listening test where you get headphones. Fancy.

Zgarbas Wrote:...I've never heard of a listening test where you get headphones. Fancy.

This was my initial though too. :lol:

Most of the tests I've had that I can think of had an actual person, usually the instructor of whatever class the exam is in, reading any listening sections to us out loud. I'm guessing the JLPT draws a large enough crowd where this would be unrealistic.

[Zgarbas]

We just had tapes playing on a cassette player for every listening practice/exam I've taken.

erlog Wrote:I should treat it like a concert, and bring earplugs next time to see if it helps. Plugging one ear with a finger helped me understand what was being said better.

i was also plugging my ears. it helped a bit. it's really annoying.

quincy Wrote:If you've got a problem then speak up! Of course they won't play the questions again if nobody says anything. Next time raise your hand or just say "hey I can't hear anything because this guys coughing".

I would definitely speak up next time. It was my first time taking the test and I was caught off guard and just expected the worst.

I emailed the JLPT board about it, just asking advice on what I should have done and if they would have paused the cd, and they gave me a surprisingly defensive answer that included them stating 'we can hardly prevent somebody from coughing'. Pretty odd since I wasn't complaining at all and am not really concerned about the results of the test, just asking for advice on what I should have done.

I think if I take the test again I'll practice by doing the listening quiz in public, out of my laptop speakers with other distractions going on. Prior to the test, I had only taken the practice listening sections with noise canceling headphones on. I'm pretty easily distracted and found the general shuffling of papers somewhat distracting even before the coughing fit.

Zgarbas Wrote:We just had tapes playing on a cassette player for every listening practice/exam I've taken.

Yeah, same here.
There is a sound check before the listening exam starts and if there's something you can't hear, you need to inform your proctor right away.
As for the giggling and gasping, the proctors need to be pretty strict with these kinds of things. i remember one proctor in the classroom beside mine; she sent someone out of the classroom because apparently, that student was making sniffling/coughing sounds as clues to the exam. Like A is one cough, B is two, etc. Something like that Like A is one cough, B is two, etc.

I took JLPT in San Francisco in December as well (N2) and there were several disturbances, just like the year before. When the proctor reads the test instructions aloud at the beginning, they say there's zero-tolerance, but that's never the case. Irritating.

(And the acoustics at SFSU are TERRIBLE. That tinny boombox and echo-chamber classroom would make it hard to hear even something in one's native language.)