I took the JLPT 1 on December 2, 2012 in Tokyo and I was finally able to see my results today.

Pass!!

I'm so happy! I was pretty worried about it, thinking I'd screwed up on 言語知識, but it turns out I scored highest on 言語知識 and lowest on 聴解, which I thought I'd done the best on! Hahaha.

How about everybody else? The results should start rolling in now, right?

[Zgarbas]

2 more days for the rest of us.

Congrats .

Ah, a bit premature then? Sorry sorry...

Thanks Even though I never really put much value on the test, after I took it... it started to feel important... like... "Wow... this is a measurement of the last four years of my life as a student of Japanese." So, passing feels really good... makes me feel like I was studying the way I should have been. Feels like motivation to get even better.

That's a good attitude to have. JLPT 1 is a stepping stone on the road, and passing certainly does take a certain weight off of you. Instead of going for min/maxing and efficiency you can spend more time on things like idioms and culture that are quite important for gaining a higher level of understanding. You can also devote more time to real practice from native material instead of trying to cram.

Before you pass it feels like any time not spent directly on a skill related to the test is kind of wasted. It's unfortunate because in the grand scheme the test is quite narrowly focused toward literacy in a very rote mathematical sense. You could be quite good at speaking, but then fail JLPT 1 because that's not the skill it tests. You could also be good at reading certain kinds of material, but find the style of the writing on the JLPT is different enough to throw you off.

I don't intend to minimize the accomplishment of JLPT 1 here. It takes a significant time investment to make it that far. It's just disappointing to me that the test is the way it is, and it leads people in a direction that, while useful overall, does not really translate into real gains early on in terms of a person's ability to communicate with people in real Japanese.

The flip side to this is that failing doesn't mean your Japanese is garbage or anything. It's just a test of certain skills. It's not an all-encompassing measure of Japanese ability.

I'll quote what I posted in the other JLPT thread since it's more relevant here.

erlog Wrote:I somehow managed to pass N1 again, but with a much lower score. I got 106 this time, but like 121 last time. I'm interested in seeing what the pass rate was like. Maybe this was just a harder test or something.

My listening stayed pretty much the same while everything else was a handful of points worse. I can't really say I'm surprised at all considering I didn't spend a single second preparing for this JLPT because I've been pouring all my effort into KanKen.

I really need to sit down with a grammar drill book or work through a proper grammar text. I also need to drill listening a bunch. I hate the way the test does listening, but it's no use whining about it. I should be acing that section since I live in Japan and have Japanese conversations literally every day. I even have business-ey conversations with a decent regularity.

My hearing even for English isn't great sometimes, but it definitely gets a lot worse in Japanese. They always have the speakers up so loud, and it echoes horribly in the kinds of classrooms where they host the test. Maybe I should train for it by buying some 100円 earbuds, and slamming them in my front door a few times to make sure the sound coming out of them is nice and garbled.

[Zgarbas]

Actually, the JLPT is very standard, if not pretty lax. Speaking/Writing skills in other language certificates aren't necessarily about language skills so much as following a certain pattern. E.g. I actually got a low score in the writing part of the CPE (English C2 exam) because I didn't bother memorizing the formats (1 paragraph intro, 2 paragraphs general, 1 paragraph particular, 1 paragraph conclusion for essays, where to place everything when writing a formal invitation or request, etc.)
Speaking is usually related to using certain set phrases and talking to your randomly-chosen partner in a certain way (often there are kids with good speaking skills that get a low grade because they had a poor choice of partner). Language skills are not as important in the production area so much as following certain patterns and formats which have to be rote memorized.

The fact that you get multiple choice also encourages educated guessing rather than rote memorization. Compare the word formation tests in English where you have to remember that "relationship" is the right derivation for "relate". Yes, there are entire books of common tricky words and derivations which are often on tests. And yes, most people just memorize them. And oh god, the phraaasaaal veeerrbbsss. So natural when you use or see them, so rote memorization when you have to fill in the gaps.

Ignoring the fact that my Japanese is not good enough to pass it, I think the JLPT has more common sense than other language certificates...

When I took N1, I wasn't nervous, because I didn't think I'd pass. Now that I know that the results will be up in about 13 and a half hours, I'm getting nervous. XD

Not like there's anything I can do about it.

I think the only place I failed was properly preparing provisions. Had to pee, wolf down a protein bar, and drink some water in the meager 10 minute break we got between sections, and I only had time for the first two. I thought we were supposed to get half an hour but the proctor was clear, 10 minutes and not a second longer

rich_f - I'm with ya getting a little nervous now, I might check during the wee hours if the baby wakes me up XD

i can't stop checking the website. are you guys sure they're gonna be posted the 31st?

[Zgarbas]

Says so on the site, they'd better post it.

I'm also refreshing the site obsessively since it doesn't state at what hour the results are posted... I hope the site doesn't crash from all the refreshing .

It does say that results are up until March at 5pm, but there's no hour for the Jan 31st date.

unless you're in Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, or Malaysia, the official jlpt site says they'll be available the 31st at 5pm JST. So in about 12 hours.

Yeah... I'll be staying up until 3AM to get the results... and if I fail, good luck getting to sleep after that... of course if I pass, well, good luck getting to sleep after that, too! Hell, if I decide to wait, good luck getting to sleep, period!

EDIT:　Oh, yeah, we've also got some violent weather coming through late tonight, yaaaay. No sleep for me!

US scores are up!

http://i.imgur.com/KrmZfIk.png

Vocab & Grammar - 49/60
Reading - 34/60
Listening - 36/60

Total - 119/160

N1 = PASSED

I took N1 and I didn't pass >.< Actually I did worse than what I expected. I knew I didn't do well on the vocab section as I had never seen some of those words before but I totally bombed on the listening section, which really really surprises me. I was working in a Japanese company all of last year and spoke Japanese at least once on a daily basis and 99% of the time understood everything fine. Nevermind, that's the way the sembei crumbles I suppose.

... wait for it...

didn't pass N1... I will say that my japanese never improved as fast as the rate that it had been in the months prior to N1 (aside from the time where I studied abroad) so I'm pretty happy with my actual progress in 2012 because it was significant. I need to just ramp it up even more here in 2013...

[Zgarbas]

Language: 36/60
Reading: 36/60
Listening:34/60

Total:106

This gives a whole new meaning to barely, but... I passed N2 :

N3

Language: 53
Reading: 60 (...da hell?! This is the section I was worried about the most!)
Listening: 47

Total: 160/180 pass!

Alrighty then, onwards to N2! Congrats to those who passed, and to those who have more tests to look forward to - 頑張りましょう！

Zgarbas Wrote:Language: 36/60
Reading: 36/60
Listening:34/60

Total:106

This gives a whole new meaning to barely, but... I passed N2 :

Actually a score of 106 puts you somewhere within the top 20 percent of all test scores for the cohort (PDF), so that's pretty good! I guess it's a pretty unintuitive grading system if people can score in the top 20-25% yet their raw score seems to imply that they "barely" passed. The fractional figure makes it look linear, but really it's always been a bell curve.

I'm still kicking myself for somehow not filling in a password on the application form, so it's still another month-long wait.

It was my first time taking the JLPT, and I was pretty sure I bombed the listening due to distractions in the room. I'm pretty surprised and happy that I squeaked by and passed.

N3
Language: 30/60
Reading: 45/60
Listening:31/60

total 106

Guoguodi Wrote:Actually a score of 106 puts you somewhere within the top 20 percent of all test scores for the cohort (PDF), so that's pretty good!

That curve only applies to that session of the test. You're linking to the 2011年2回 statistics. The statistics for 2012年2回 are not released yet. So we don't have any idea at all what that curve looks like for the most recent test.

I'll agree the scoring is unintuitive, but it does seem more fair overall to me.

Didn't pass N1, but the scores were *slightly* better than last year's attempt. (Then again, I didn't study at all for it.)

I think the disappointment for me was the low score in listening. I listen to a lot of Japanese every day, but for some reason I only got 23/60 on it. Yuck.

Oh well. Gotta start studying again, I suppose.

erlog Wrote:

Guoguodi Wrote:Actually a score of 106 puts you somewhere within the top 20 percent of all test scores for the cohort (PDF), so that's pretty good!

That curve only applies to that session of the test. You're linking to the 2011年2回 statistics. The statistics for 2012年2回 are not released yet. So we don't have any idea at all what that curve looks like for the most recent test.

I'll agree the scoring is unintuitive, but it does seem more fair overall to me.

Yeah, the stats are for 2011. Although I don't think they vary that much year to year (wasn't the whole point of using a scaling system to ostensibly even out the difficulty between tests, so that the same score across different years could be considered equivalent)?

[Zgarbas]

Well, to be fair it's not just about listening so much as attention span. We had to take a N3 mock exam (seemed pretty legit, no idea where the teacher got the subjects from) and though there was not a single sentence in the listening section which I didn't get I still got a pretty low score because I am very dumb during exams. As soon as a sentence is finished I instantly forget it.

Vocabulary/Grammar: 57/60
Reading: 34/60
Listening:60/60

Total: 151/180

The time they give for readings isn't enough, imho.

Otherwise, how do you explain my results, almost perfect in everything else? And do you believe I devote to reading much more time than I dedicate to grammar, vocabulary and kanji?^^

kazeatari - Great score regardless, but what level?

Oh! you're right^^;; it was N2, I'm prepping for N1 and i'll take the test on july in Japan...I can't wait ^____^