Finish the KO before doing anything else.
And be prepared to find some really tough kanji, its not level two for nothing.
Good luck!

Yes, with 18 days to go, it's officially time for JLPT2 grammar panic.

What kills me are blocks of grammar constructs that differ only by a particle or two.

----------------------------------------------
～うえ（に）
～上で～上の
～上は
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～からいうと　～からいえば　～からいって
～からして
～からすると　～からすれば
～からといって
～からには　～からは
～から見ると　～から見れば　～から見て　～から見ても
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～ことか
～ことから
～ことだ
～ことだから
～ことなく
～ことに（は）
～ことになっている　～こととなっている
～ことはない　～こともない
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～ものがある
～ものだ（１）
～ものだ（２）
～ものだ（３）
～もの
～ものか
～ものなら

Sometimes, I get confused between もの and こと.

Or from the fact that phrases like ～ことはない and ～こともない have the same meaning, but are completely different from ～ことなく...

Of course, I have seen "fake" or "made up constructs" as choices in some workbooks. Those are quite evil - only foreign learners of Japanese would fall prey... ...reminds me of made-up Kanji compounds and readings.

I got the results for the JLPT like test I did. I get like 59% which was a suprise since I hadn't even started my grammar study at that point. I also did the 2004 test about half way through my grammar study and scraped through with 61%. I am feeling fairly confidend of passing though. I know all the grammar now and have not found my vocab or kanji to be a problem at all so far. The listening section is fairly easy IMO as well.

Also, I heard from a friend that the 2007 test was too hard, in the sense that they generally want/expect a certain percentage of people to pass and many more people failed than expected. So 2008 is supposed to be a bit easier. That is what he was saying anyway which more or less makes sense to me.

It's funny though. I don't need this qualification for work or anything so it's more just challenge for me and the more I study it the less I care about it. It doesn't show much more than a decent vocab and reading ability. I have been purely focusing on increasing my passive knowledge to pass the test, so I can't use half the stuff I have learnt recently. Can't wait to get it behind me and going back to learning Japanese again

thermal Wrote:Also, I heard from a friend that the 2007 test was too hard, in the sense that they generally want/expect a certain percentage of people to pass and many more people failed than expected. So 2008 is supposed to be a bit easier. That is what he was saying anyway which more or less makes sense to me.

I LOVE when people say this, it was in 2007 I passed the official JLPT2 And yes, it was a bit harder than usual, there was a lot of talk about that just after I took it.

[Katsuo]

Here are the average scores (out of 400) for candidates taking level 2 over the last few years. The test seems to be getting harder.

2002 226.1
2003 227.9
2004 228.9
2005 215.6
2006 217.6
2007 208.7

Katsuo Wrote:Here are the average scores (out of 400) for candidates taking level 2 over the last few years. The test seems to be getting harder.

2002 226.1
2003 227.9
2004 228.9
2005 215.6
2006 217.6
2007 208.7

Yeah, this is true. At my school in Japan, we did old JLPT tests both as an exercise for the real one AND as real school tests which decided whether one was allowed to stay in the class or move down a level.

The common opinion was that the farther back you go, the easier it is, the easiest one I personally tried was 2003.

>The common opinion was that the farther back you go, the easier it is, the easiest one I personally tried was 2003.

my impression is kind of like the complete opposite to this -
I did the 2006 one several weeks ago, then did the whole 2004 and the vocab section of 2007 yesterday.

for example the vocab section ( because that's the only one I've done for all three until now ) :
Surprisingly, I had a hard time answering 2004, got 59% in the end and passed the 2007 one with 74%, and had even like 15mins of extra time left.
so 59% and 74% on the same day - when everybody's saying the test is getting harder ? how's that even possible?! o__O

Perhaps the randomization of vocabulary happened to play to your favor?

Or perhaps the vocab section was easier, but the listening/reading/grammar section was harder? It's not broken down in that average.

There could be any number of reasons for the average score going down. It could be that the test got harder, or it could be that the number of unprepared people taking the test went up, or more outliers scewing the results...

The tests do get harder year by year. Just look at a JLPT1 test from the early 90s and compare it to current JLPT2.

I did a few questions of (early 1990s) JLPT1 listening yesterday and it seemed downright easy.