(2015-11-30, 1:35 am)Kuma_sensei Wrote: Anyone have any tips on how I could squeeze out 5 more points in the next week?  (Study strategies, etc, etc).

This grammar deck (koohii thread). Probably improved my score by at least 10 points. Only 111 of the notes are for N1, should be easy to do in a week.

Welp, looks like flipping the test has its plusses and minuses. Plus side: really improved my reading comprehension score! It went up from 20 to 36. Woot.

Minus side: Grammar slid a bit, because by the time I got to some of those grammar questions, I wasn't thinking that well. But overall, a pass. I'll take it.

I might try one last mock test on Thursday, if I have time. Feels like I'm right in the 95-115 range, depending on how well I concentrate, and how little I panic.

My other top JLPT tip is that if you run out of time and have to just randomly fill in any remaining questions, always guess 4 :-)

Yeah, I usually go with 4, except if I'm stuck on 70 and 71, in which case I always go with 2 and 3. Seems to work a lot. Dunno why. XD

I'm spending this week doing mock exams for N2 and going to do the J-CAT as well. I'll probably just go through the Shin Kanzen Master Grammar and Reading Book if I can get through the sample questions in time for sunday.

Taking it in Ann Arbor!!

Dec. 6th is coming so fast... I'm not well enough prepared...

Only two more days left to study...

I've been focusing on my listening practice this week. I've found たまむすび the easiest radio/podcast for me to listen to while driving to school. I also finished the listening practice exam in the back of 新完全マスターN2 聴解 this morning (I think the last time I took it was months ago, so I didn't remember 99% of it) and got 70% of the questions right. 即時応答 kicked my ass as expected. Will need to take better notes on the last problem type in the listening section.

Overall, I seem to get consistently get anywhere from 65% to 75% correct between 言語知識, 読解, and 聴解 on all of the practice exams and questions I've done so far. I'm hoping this translates into an equivalent score on the real test. I'm already expecting my real score to be lower, but for anyone else who kept track of their practice exam scores, how did you do compared to what you anticipated? Was it roughly what you expected?

I'm downloading a big pile of old 爆笑問題 podcasts for the drive to DC. That, and I'll take some listening sections of practice tests to listen to, too. I'll switch 'em out as I go along. I doubt I'll be able to listen to too much JLPT prep stuff if I want to fight off sleep.

Tonight/tomorrow, I'll do some grammar Drill and Drill, some reading Drill and Drill and then some sleep Drill and Drill.

Good luck to everyone taking the test!

Anyone knows a website where I can get my hand on more mock tests? Done 3 so far and I can't find anything but old N2 mock test.

Thank you!

(2015-12-03, 5:58 pm)Elidan456 Wrote: Anyone knows a website where I can get my hand on more mock tests? Done 3 so far and I can't find anything but old N2 mock test.

Thank you!

does this work for you?

(2015-12-03, 3:54 pm)Bokusenou Wrote: Good luck to everyone taking the test!

thank you getting in my last grammar review. i flipped through my 語彙 book and felt ok so i figured all i can do is solidify my grammar and show that reading section who is boss.

(2015-12-03, 5:58 pm)Elidan456 Wrote: Anyone knows a website where I can get my hand on more mock tests?

Try searching on Baidu. http://wenku.baidu.com/view/4c1055eef533...rom=search

There are transcription errors in some of these versions though.

I think if I pass N1, I'm gonna burn my Drill and Drill grammar book. I feel like I'm being nitpicked to death. *sigh*

The worst part is that it seems like 4/10 answers aren't in any of my prep books. "Oh that's ◎×☆〒のものこと☆★をえない," which is only mentioned in Drill and Drill.

The other 6 I can get if I concentrate so hard it feels like I'm going to poop out my brain.

Well time flies and not much studying has been done but might as well show up for the test since I paid for it. Might learn something lol

All the best to everyone taking the test!

Going to have to go with artificial confidence this time... Whether I pass or not will likely have more to do with how many correct guesses I can make than anything else...
Asked about a bookstore in the 'How Much Have You Been Studying?' thread, won't restate it, just some exposure... Should've thought about that earlier.

Good luck to everyone, and safe travels to your various destinations all over the world.

May they use vocab we've all actually seen in real Japanese media, if not vocab we've actually studied in a prep book.
May the grammar on the test be the kind humans use on a daily basis, and not something a dead samurai's bound ghost might use in addressing us.
May the reading have as few of those obnoxious footnotes that break my reading groove as possible.
May the listening be semi-coherent, and the may the hidden footballs in the conversation questions be easily discovered.

And may the force be with us. Always.

All the best to everybody taking the JLPT this time around.

Just one word of caution though: After some initial rest, it might be advisable to establish a new set of future goals after the JLPT. For various reasons I failed to do so, and basically haven't touched Japanese since passing N1 a year ago, much to the detriment of my abilities...

Anyone has any suggestion about how manage time on grammar-vocabulary-reading?
For example, finishing grammar/vocabulary in x time or spending how much time in average for every text in dokkai.
Just to be sure not to go run out of time.
Also, for dokkai, is it always recommended to read before the text and after the question/answers?

Unfortunately I haven't done many mock tests (near 0 actually), kami-sama decided that my sotsugyou needed to be only 3 days after jlpt :\
I'm taking n1 btw

(2015-12-05, 9:38 am)TurboMan Wrote: Anyone has any suggestion about how manage time on grammar-vocabulary-reading?
For example, finishing grammar/vocabulary in x time or spending how much time in average for every text in dokkai.
Just to be sure not to go run out of time.
Also, for dokkai, is it always recommended to read before the text and after the question/answers?

Unfortunately I haven't done many mock tests (near 0 actually), kami-sama decided that my sotsugyou needed to be only 3 days after jlpt :\
I'm taking n1 btw

Good luck man.

I'm only taking N2 so I can't comment too much on times, but why not take a timed mock test today if you have 2 or so hours free? For N2, I am shooting for 30 minutes or less (ideally around 20-25 minutes) for vocab + grammar and 60+ minutes for the reading section (about 3-4 minutes per each question on average) and then some free time at the end to check things. N1 seems to drop the 表記 and 語形成 parts from the 文字・語彙 section so it has about 9 less questions before the reading section but added more reading questions, so I would probably aim for 20-25 minutes (or less) again for vocab + grammar and then use the rest of my time on reading. You would have roughly 3-4 minutes on average to finish all 26 reading problems. Most likely you'll knock out the short passages quickly so that number is a little skewed.

If you have some time then I would recommend taking a timed mock test even if just to see how quickly you can knock out the vocab + grammar and figure out how much time you'll have left for reading.

@zx573
Now that you mentioned it I remember having managed time roughly the same last year with N2 (I tried at least), I supposed it won't be that different with N1!
Yeah I'd like to try one or two mock test, I just don't know If can afford the time, but it would definitely help.

Thank you very much, and of course good luck to you as well, may both of us pass the exam with excellent scores (and the same to everyone else taking the test! )

Is this anyone's second attempt for N2/N1?
Did you bomb the test or barely fail? Or you just want a better score?
Just curious thanks
Good luck again

(2015-12-05, 9:38 am)TurboMan Wrote: Anyone has any suggestion about how manage time on grammar-vocabulary-reading?
For example, finishing grammar/vocabulary in x time or spending how much time in average for every text in dokkai.
Just to be sure not to go run out of time.
Also, for dokkai, is it always recommended to read before the text and after the question/answers?

Unfortunately I haven't done many mock tests (near 0 actually), kami-sama decided that my sotsugyou needed to be only 3 days after jlpt :\
I'm taking n1 btw

It really depends on your reading speed, but when I took the JLPT and passed I was still a pretty slow reader. (Perhaps I still am, but I'm not in  a test situation to confront it anymore!) Anyway, I think I spent half the time on grammar-vocab and half the time on reading, and was forced to only skim the last two pieces. If I had to do it again, I'd try to finish the other parts in a third of the test time to be able to comfortably finish the readings.

Unfortunately, I don't think there's a lot that can be done about time management. I found the test as a whole to be a test of reading speed - both times I took it, I got well above a passing score for the number of questions I answered. I just didn't finish enough of the test the first time. Even the grammar/vocab section tests your reading speed - you have to read all the questions and answers! Anyway, I did make a point of not dwelling on difficult questions too long, but making 50/50 guesses (or, I suppose, totally random guesses but I don't think there were any questions where I couldn't eliminate some choices). I circled those cases in the test book in case I had time to come back and check my work, but I didn't have any such time.

There's really no 'time per piece' for the reading section - some of the readings are very long and some of them are very short. I did find it useful to read the questions (but not the answer choices, that's a waste of time) before reading the piece. The questions tend to be in order, so I would read the first question, then read the piece until I got the answer, then read the next question, and continue reading the piece, etc. A couple times the last question was a general question ("How does the author feel about the topic?") and I didn't even have to finish the reading because the opinion was already made clear from the outset. Doing it this way eliminates a lot of re-reading (or re-skimming trying to find the place where the question was answered) that you might otherwise do. Make sure to make pencil marks or keep a finger on your place in the piece so that you jump right back to the right spot!

頑張って！

Just took my first mock N1 test using the 3A 日本語能力試験 模擬テスト first book. I'd forgotten how exhausting it is to have to concentrate for a couple of hours on the trot; I haven't had to do that for years. Anyway, I'm pretty happy with what I got as my baseline "haven't studied yet" level:
vocab 20/25 (80%); grammar 16/20 (80%); reading 23/26 (88%); listening 32/37 (86%)
The book doesn't suggest a pass mark, but I'm guessing that would be a fairly solid pass. Definitely doing much more guessing than I'd like on the vocab sections, though, and grammar could use a brushup.

(2015-12-05, 1:23 pm)SomeCallMeChris Wrote: ...

Some other nice suggestions here!
Being a slow reader is one of my many problems, and so yeah sometimes I tend to keep dwelling too much until I can't solve the question...
But I'll keep in mind to mark difficult answers and to read the questions before.

Thank you, really hoping to pass

This is... my 4th attempt at N1, I think? Attempt #1 was right after passing N2 a few months before, so I wasn't taking it other than to just see what sort of dragons were lurking ahead. (Nope, didn't study for it!)

During attempt #2, I had to drop everything and get a certification done, which killed 6 weeks of prep time in September/October. (I don't recommend that, but if someone says "Get this cert," then sometimes you gotta get the cert.)

Last year, my eyes were totally FUBARed, so I could barely see for a month, let alone read. It was pretty bad. I wound up going to the eye doctor about 8 times in 16 days. That bad. (It was an allergic reaction to eye medicine for chronic eye irritation. Irony!) So last year's N1 was more of a, "Well, I signed up for it, let's see what happens. Get it? SEE? LOL," kind of thing. Since I hadn't studied at all the previous month (not being able to see much), it didn't go too well.

This is the first time I'm going at it after putting in a decent amount of study time, and actually trying to learn the material without any major life interruptions. We'll see how it goes.

I think either way, I'm going to keep studying, and not take much of a break after all. That way, in case I bomb it, I'll be ready to go somewhere that offers it in summer and finally put it (and myself) out of its (and my) misery.

Time to get some sleep now, I think. Good luck everyone!

Ok, the actual N2 test was more difficult than any of the mock tests I did before. Kanji part was easy, but the grammar part was a killer for me ... Reading was probably OK for the most part, but sometimes picking out the correct choice seemed very difficult. At the moment I don't feel that I passed, so have to wait for the final verdict until end of next Month...