Evil_Dragon Wrote:A hand full of people told me the same afterwards. And I agree, it was a little too tricky.

None of the past exams I did at home (2004-2008) had that sort of question.

There was a question in the 2008 exam about ordering events during a graduation ceremony. It was similar in the sense that it was different to anything I had ever seen before

At a stretch, questions like that seem almost like a different question format. It's not really testing your listening ability -- more your ability to think in the same mode as the person who made the question.

I was lucky with taking lots of notes for that question, though, as I was able to go back to it when the example for part 2 was playing, and piece together that the kid at the tap was the odd one out.

ocircle Wrote:

captal Wrote:

ocircle Wrote:Yeah, it was 4.

My test class of about 100 people cracked up at that question.
It sounded like some people were laughing hysterically once they said "Asuka".

Hey how'd it go ocircle? You got up to speed pretty fast, so I'm curious...

I am most certain I passed.
Probably 75-80ish vocab, 90ish listening, 70ish reading/grammar
The grammar wasn't bad (I only had to guess 3 and a lot of it was covered in kanzen master) but the reading really got me.

I still don't know what exactly the first essay was trying to say.
(...something about society?) but I was also pretty nervous and jittery (5 hour energy is amazing!...for the Choukai section, anyway.)

We'll know for certain in February

for what I understood it s about the link between possession and social interaction.
to sum it up the author says that an idealogy of personal possession and consumption have reduced the occasion for people to interact . Common possession ensured that people were forced to use the same thing like it or not and to communicate .Now it s all about individual needs.
the author asserts that this trend is both inside the society and the family and epitomizes this through the phone . In public a lot people use their keitai in metro and ignore everybody else at home the keitai has become the substitute of the stationnary phone to the point that a phone number is not a link anymore.

the most confusing thing was the last question does design has influenced society or is it the reverse? or does it work both way? because precisely the article is not so clear about that .It begins talking ideology and then it talk about design and its effects. I ended up answering "both way" but I far from being sure of the answer.

I must say that I think poorly of this article....the these is nothing original and as you reaction pointed it out it s far from being limpid.

kudos to you
i wish I succeeded as good as you on listening . If I don t do really good on reading I m screwed .

oh gosh, it's all coming back to me now (that I'm sobering up from the celebration drinking). Yeah... it was that essay, it went on for like 2 paragraphs about society, and then blah blah blah keitai no need for a house phone. It reminded me a bit of a listening question where you were supposed to answer what one must do to make kids eat... but.. yeah.

Also,

misha Wrote:To top it off, I messed up question 4 of the first part (the one with the kids and social behaviour) cause it took up a full page, and I mistook it to be two separate questions.

hahaha, I did that too.
I started taking notes about flowers and I was staring at the triangle and circles... and lo and behold, the next page has the flower. Fortunately I had taken fairly good notes, so I don't think I got either question wrong.

I did Lv 3 in Seattle today. Feels good to be done. There were 2 or 3 listening questions that made people laugh a little. It was nice. Humanized it.

Hope you all passed.

Question for level 3 takers (or advice from the majority Lv 1 & 2 takers): Should I go for level 2 next year or the "new" level.

Also, does anyone have any info about the relaease of study materials for the "new" level?"

canji Wrote:I did Lv 3 in Seattle today. Feels good to be done. There were 2 or 3 listening questions that made people laugh a little. It was nice. Humanized it.

Hope you all passed.

Question for level 3 takers (or advice from the majority Lv 1 & 2 takers): Should I go for level 2 next year or the "new" level.

Also, does anyone have any info about the relaease of study materials for the "new" level?"

Depends on how much you study. It's hardly impossible to go from JLPT3 to JLPT2 in a year, but it's a lot of work.

Of course I can't say anything about the new JLPT, but if we're talking "old school", one year is more than enough to go from 3 to 2 if you enjoy reading. If I were you, I'd go for it!

level2
level 2 is just the beginning :everything below level 2 is simply useless in your interactions (job, reading ,etc...) . The new level is a false solution. It just relieve applicants fear about the gap between 3 and 2. It won t mean shit for companies (who aren t ashamed to ask for native like abilities even when they recruit foreigners.As a canon manager told me :You want to be taken seriously it s both JLPT1 and BJT plus an experience -be it japanese university or internship or anything hinting that you re able to interact in a japanes environment. And it just means that you ll get the interview if your abilities meet the requirements. Remember that there is plenty of chinese cram school boys that got jplt1 in one year) and it won t give you a decent command on any normal document.
But there is a reason to this gap :it s the difference between reading japanese for gaijin and reading japanese for japanese .

go for level 2 by next year you have plenty of time to reach that level

Took Level 3 today in San Francisco.

Vocab/reading was by far the easiest part. I felt that RTK, iKnow, SRS, and grinding a bunch of words that didn't overlap on the JLPTstudy website the night before worked pretty well.

Listening was pretty brutal, but I was expecting it. When I tried the past listening tests, I did horribly. But for the real test, I think I might have done slightly better than my past test average (about 50%). Personally, I think self-study in a non-immersion environment put me at a disadvantage for this section. I have never actually communicated with anyone in Japanese, nor have I spoken so much as a word or two. The lack of communication practice makes listening a bit tougher for self-studiers.

Reading was so-so. I didn't focus on grammar as much as I should have, and I suffered accordingly. If I actually took the time to read the Kanzen Master book, I would surely have done better. I heard from someone that grammar is easy if you take classes because they really drill grammar into you. Not so for me, haha. It made me realize that I need to spend more time learning grammar.

Evil_Dragon Wrote:Of course I can't say anything about the new JLPT, but if we're talking "old school", one year is more than enough to go from 3 to 2 if you enjoy reading. If I were you, I'd go for it!

I must say that I m not necesserly looking forward to the new format....
the new audio could be either very nice or a real nightmare . All about reflexe .
I m kind of pessimist and I m pretty sure that they won t be able to gauge the difficulty on the first try. The 4th audio question shows well enough they can look over things incredibly bad

Here is my summary of JLPT1:
Kanji/Vocab: very easy
Listening: Picture section was somewhat difficult (wasn't helped by everyone rattling their pages around for no reason), no-picture section was easy
Reading: Easy
Grammar: barf

I probably should have studied for grammar more than skimming a list of the grammar points the day before the test. I started JLPT1 directed study the week before the test by going through the kanzen master dokkai book.

Kanzen Masten master is not a good book to use for grammar I think. A number of the points towards the back of the book are infact the same point in a very slightly different form, and some other ones actually belong to much easier kyuu (like 〜まみれ). I haven't looked at the Sou Matome books for 1kyuu, but I loved their 2kyuu stuff. In retrospect I never would have bought any of the kanzen master books except for reading. The vocab KM book went totally unused.

ghinzdra Wrote:I m kind of pessimist and I m pretty sure that they won t be able to gauge the difficulty on the first try. The 4th audio question shows well enough they can look over things incredibly bad

Actually I think the first one will be a tad easier than past tests because people are not used to the new format yet. At least that's what I would do.

Jarvik7 Wrote:Grammar: barf

I probably should have studied for grammar more than skimming a list of the grammar points the day before the test. I started JLPT1 directed study the week before the test by going through the kanzen master dokkai book.

I thought you were already Level 1 and Above :O.

Guess, my dream of passing level 1 next year is a bit unrealistic, huh?

Considering all the Chinese sites seem to have うっとうしい　as an answer for the 蒸し暑いvocab question, but they are certainly wrong I believe?

うっとう‐し・い〔ウツタウ‐〕【×鬱陶しい】


［形］［文］うったう・し［シク］

１ 心がふさいで晴れ晴れしない(excat opposite of a 蒸し暑い day)。気分が重苦しい。「難題をかかえて―・い気分だ」「―・い梅雨空」

____________________________________________________

なま‐ぬる・い【生▽温い】

［形］［文］なまぬる・し［ク］

１ 少しあたたかい。中途半端にあたたかい。また、変にあたたかい。なまあたたかい。「―・いふろ」「―・い春風」

kazelee Wrote:

Jarvik7 Wrote:Grammar: barf

I probably should have studied for grammar more than skimming a list of the grammar points the day before the test. I started JLPT1 directed study the week before the test by going through the kanzen master dokkai book.

I thought you were already Level 1 and Above :O.

Guess, my dream of passing level 1 next year is a bit unrealistic, huh?

he just said that his grammar was so so . And i bet it would be the same for a lot of japanese : damn I talked with a waseda teacher last week and she told me that there is some grammar in JPLT1 that she NEVER EVER used .from this message I still have the feeling that he cruised through JPLT1 . That s much more than most people can say .
And I don t see why you wouldn t be able to pass level 1 next year .

Sorry Jarvik, it must be that I jinxed your grammar. Anytime I encourage people they end up failing. I should've said 'break a leg!'

What are all these "Chinese sites" and how do I access them?
The Level 1 test was hard. I'd really like to get a look at those questions again, then once we have the questions, we can all debate the answers with authority!

Nice, almost three years and never posted until now. You are a true lurker.

JLPT1 listening was so damn awesome

I couldn't believe my ears when I heard the last neon genesis problem. I seriously felt like I was inside the question. They even had sirens and whatnot running haha.

The dragon fantasy (DQ+FF) one was a bit harder but not as epic

Oh dear god, the Evangelion one found it's way to youtube... with background music!

misha Wrote:I sat JLPT1 in Sydney yesterday.

To top it off, I messed up question 4 of the first part (the one with the kids and social behaviour) cause it took up a full page, and I mistook it to be two separate questions. I realised the error of my ways two questions after that, when things weren't make _any_ sense at all. It wasn't a great confidence building exercise.

lol. I did the same thing, except I realized it after the next (flower) question. I was so confused trying to figure out how to answer question 4 until I connected the children to the pyramid and circles.

Evil_Dragon Wrote:Oh dear god, the Evangelion one found it's way to youtube... with background music!

thanks for the tip!
you know what s the best thing about it ? you barely make a difference with professionnal seiyuu . I mean the evangelion music and the JPLT audio fits perfectly .

I said it in an other topic this is gonna be a legendary question for JPLT takers.

How come you can find EVERYTHING about JPLT
-kanji
answers for this part
-hearing both audio and script
-grammar with link to books

BUT the reading form? It makes me really mad

I found the reading, now looking for correct answers.

By the way, as I understand it, reading questions are worth more than the rest, but how about the rest? Are listening, grammar and Kanji/Vocab worth exactly the same?

misha Wrote:I found the reading, now looking for correct answers.

Give me the reading and I have 10 japanese roomate who would be delighted to give the right answer
please pretty please