Well this as good a thread as any to post our おつかれさま's. I am pretty sure that I didn't pass as I took all the tests from 2002-2006 as practice and kept getting about a 55% overall. I also think September was a bit late to curl up with the Unicom books. Looks like I'll be back in the level 2 room next year

In any case I am a little pissed. There was a Chinese site I found before the test that had copy-paste-able copies of all past tests from something like 1993-2006. As of yesterday afternoon, they had a question dump with most of the grammar questions already posted. That means people in Hawaii who are just finishing up as we speak and know about the site are going to have an unfair advantage. I really think the test needs to update to adapt to the information age...

Other that that, how do you all feel about your results? For those that think they passed, congratulations in advance!

I was writing level 2 out at Oubirin University near Tokyo yesterday. I really, really wish I had at least TAKEN some practice tests (so at least you did THAT much), but I only made it through both my Kanzen Master grammar and the Unicom kanji/vocab the day before. Yikes. I guessed on a lot of questions, and in the last section, the five minute warning bell rang before I had even gotten to the first long reading, which I had in my wisdom saved for last.

Even if I don't pass though, I don't think I'd sit 2kyuu again. I'd rather set my hopes on 1kyuu and study study study and possibly fail and then take that again in 09. I've already started studying for it, actually. Never too early. ^^;;

Oh, and brose, thanks again for the book. When I cracked it open the day before I realized what a great resource it really was, but I wasn't able to start it before the other books got done and... yeah. I will be using it in my studies for the months to come. I want to see if there's an 1kyuu equivalent.

I don't feel that it went all so well really, as was expected I ran out of time on the reading paper. listening seemed to be a pretty tough one compared to some past papers. Kanji and vocab was definitely my best paper. Reckon my score was probably between 220 and 240, but you never know... might've fluked it.


I'm with forestsprite on the "not wanting to sit 2級 again next year", I think I'd rather spend the next 2, 3 (however many) years preparing for 1級 than another year dedicated solely to 2級. Obivously I won't ignore 2級 material, I just plan to incorporate that into my 1級 study.

like I smashed level 3 last year, level 2 also got a pasting this year.

bring on level 1!!

/gratz to all the took the test

And in the end, remember: it's just a test! It tells you not how well you know Japanese so much as how well you know Japanese in the test-taking environment, with all the trying-to-trick-you, divorced-from-reality stuff they put in the questions.

My own story: 2kyuu, and I saved the reading for last, because I had done well on it for practice tests, but by that point I was so bored and tired I'm pretty sure I shanked it. Oh well. I can still speak Japanese and function in Japan, so I think I will reward myself by studying stuff I like-- books and novels-- rather than test materials! But I've learned a lot from cramming for the 2kyuu, so perhaps next year I'll sit it again, or the 1kyuu if I feel up to it, but if not, I'll still enjoy Japanese. (And as a Heisig aside, I felt strong on kanji and compounds, and can skim texts much more easily thanks to his system.)

Congrats to everyone who took the test, at any level-- you did well just by taking a chance and showing up!

yorkii Wrote:like I smashed level 3 last year, level 2 also got a pasting this year.

自慢するな:O

Fair play though. Glad to hear someone took the test by the balls!

I'm not even that confident that I'll have improved on my score last year

My JP reading skills remind me of learning to read English. Pitifully slow...

Glad to hear so many of you are doing well on the JLPT. I'm planning on taking 一級 next year, but unlike most people, I feel like I read and write unusually well, but have more problems than usual with listening... Does anyone have any advice other than to just keep listening to people talk for improving at this?

If not, I guess ill just keep plugging at japanesepod101, music, and the absolutely fantastic TBS news video page Synewave put up.

dilandau23 Wrote:In any case I am a little pissed. There was a Chinese site I found before the test that had copy-paste-able copies of all past tests from something like 1993-2006. As of yesterday afternoon, they had a question dump with most of the grammar questions already posted. That means people in Hawaii who are just finishing up as we speak and know about the site are going to have an unfair advantage. I really think the test needs to update to adapt to the information age...

Could you share the address for this site, for people studying for next year?

could be this one: http://jlpt.info/

Jarvik7 Wrote:Could you share the address for this site, for people studying for next year?

http://www.jpwind.com/ The site is in Chinese, it wasn't too hard for me to navigate though.

Where did you see the 2007 questions on that site?

JLPT2 grammar section

http://www.jpwind.com/JP/JLPT2/20071202152433.html

I took level 1 in London. I found it to be pretty solid and I'll be surprised if I've passed given that the pass mark is 70%. I took level 2 a couple of years ago in Japan and used the unicom grammar book to nail the grammar section. After using the same approach this year, I was surprised at how many grammar questions came up that I had to guess. In practice tests, I'd been doing reasonably well on the reading section but yesterday's seemed to be much tougher.

I was in Japan until Saturday so I was a bit worried about jet lag but I think it didn't affect me too much. When I booked my flight, I thought that it would be ok because the test was sure to be in the morning because they'd have to try and have it at the same time as the one in Japan. This wasn't the case at all - the test started at 2pm and finished at 6pm, meaning that anyone who had done the test in Japan could have easily emailed Londoners the questions that they remembered. This seems to be what's going on with the chinese site that dilandau mentioned.

I don't see how they can get around this, if they've got the test in Hawaii, California, London, Japan and maybe some other places. It's not possible to have a time that overlaps for everyone and you can't stop people remembering questions and emailing them.

EDIT: The first thing I should have said of course was みなさん、おつかれさまです！

http://www.coffeejp.com/bbs/viewthread.p...a=page%3D1

JLPT2 listening and reading tests. Some of it is poor quality but it's enough to go on if anyone wants to discuss answers...

Results will be delivered in mid-February and I think we should have a RTK/JLPT get together around the end of the month. People who passed can celebrate and give away their old study material (and maybe get new material if they are going up a level) while the people who failed can drown their sorrows.

I took level 1 at Waseda. It seemed nearly everyone was Chinese, with just a few other Asians/Westerners thrown in. I didn't see anyone who looked anywhere close to my age . It's a miserable place to take an exam, especially if you are female since there was a HUGE line for the bathroom. The seats were just little benches with no backs, and the rooms were packed with no air coming in.

I'm pretty sure I passed . I thought the grammar was tougher than usual, but the long reading passages were pretty easy, and studying the Unicom book helped.

Weber, for the listening sections I suggest analyzing the listening texts to see how they try to trip you up. They use the same types of questions year-to-year, with similar tricks (homophones etc). jlpt.info has most with answers, along with texts (caveat emptor, bootleg site).

I'm fine in conversation, and I listen to a lot of podcasts ("Radio... Sakamoto!") but the first listening test I took I got like a 15% on. After I understood how the questions worked, my scores improved fourfold, while my real-life skills stayed the same.

I did 4-kyu yesterday in Mexico City. There was more people than I thought. In my level alone we were over 600 people! Most of the people there were teenagers using the exam as a boost to enter a university (I could see it as something useful for a highly compettive pubic one, but I didn't really need any skills whatsoever to enter mine), I felt old being there hahaha.

I aced the vocabulary and kanji test which was my strongest point, but I don't think I did the listening part very well. In one of the questions I goofed up the image hahaha!!!
I don't know how I went with the grammar. I mostly went with what sounded most logical to me (probably not a good sign). If I do pass, it probably won't be a really wonderful grade; but passign the exam could be REALLY useful for me since I now have to choose a hospital to do my internship and knowing "a bit" of a language everyone deems as impossible to learn could be useful.

Haha, I went with my best friend, but they didn't even let him in the university. The poor sap stood on the street like an idiot for the following 4 hours. After the first exam on my first break I sent a cellphone message telling him when I was going to leave to at least do something like look for a magazine stand or something.

That opens another point. They let you bring cellphones to the exam, just leave the sound turned off (some people left theirs on but in silence mode). There's nothing stopping me from pming a friend in front of a computer the right answers during my break to send to someone in California or something. I brought my backback too and the examiners didn't care; I have a machine that my mom bought for her english teaching classes that can record up to 4 hours; I could have simply brought it, programmed it during the vocabulary break, record the listening section (albeit the recording wouldn't of been very good quality); upload it on youtube on a fake account or something. Piracy has no limits with the internet. Heck, anyone with a cellphone with a videorecorder could have programmed it before the listening section started and program it to record the exam with pretty decent quality, and then send it during the break to a friend with internet, and then erase their copy to avoid getting their exam taken away.

Oh, I was curious about how well did the others in the room go with their exam and kinda peeped at the end with some questions where I knew the right answer and everyone had totally different answers! So, maybe, just maybe.. I might actually pass? Or we might all epic fail hahaha.

My friend even said he saw a girl that had her 4-kyu voucher and decided in the last minute to not even do the exam because she thought she'd fail it. Geesh, I know the exam only cost 30 dollars, but at least recover your investment even if you get a 10/400!

I don't know if I'll do another exam next December; I might not have the time to prepare (my main problem with this exam because the day hit too close with my finals and I'm still exhausted). I'd love to do 3-kyu though. But first I want to finish RTK which I left holding for this exam and learn as much as I can during my vacations. ^_^

minasan otsukaresama deshita

2kyuu here. despite passing the 2003-2006 tests at home with an avg %70, i don't think i did very well yesterday. if i do pass, it'll be by a slim margin. moji/goi was a breeze, there were even a few questions where i was able to infer the answer via RTK keywords. listening however, was a nightmare. my first mistake was not raising my hand to have the volume turned up. i was about 25 feet away, and yeah i could hear it, but louder would've helped a lot. i'd be interested to see a breakdown of listening scores vs. proximity to the cheap little boombox. actually i should have studied listening at home with a boombox and not headphones. i did a lot of guessing and will be very surprised if i get even half the points. it might be just me, but the listening seemed more difficult this year. reading wasn't terrible, but i ran out of time and had to guess on six or seven of the long reading questions. argh...

of course, in the long run it doesn't matter if i pass or not, i'm just going to start studying for 1kyuu either way.

edit: just used all those chinese webpages to estimate my score is somewhere between 235-279. so i might have failed but it's more likely that i passed!

This thread http://www.jlptstudy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=490 on the JLPT study forum has links to the majority of this year's ２級 test.

well according to those links synewave has sent to the level 2 test, I checked the answers with my girlfriend and so.... it looks like I got myself a 2級 certificate on its way to me in February! booya!

3級 writing and vocab was a cinch (thanks RTK!), though I simply hadn't memorized a few of the vocab on the last part. I b-b-b-bombed listening. (>_<) I hadn't practiced it even once. Grammar was harder than most previous years tests. There were a few examples I didn't even know th grammar point I was supposed to be answering. All in all, I'd say it was an average test overall.

I'll be ashamed if I don't pass because I missed too many on listening and had enough missed grammar to push me over the edge. I'm already ashamed that I've lived in Japan for over two years already and hadn't taken the JLPT. My Japanese has improved dramatically in the 2 months since I started studying for the test. I'm also ashamed I didn't start studying earlier and waited till the last week to cram. I could have wiped my bum with that test but simply hadn't crammed enough vocab and gotten enough reps on the grammar. If I start now I'm sure I'll be able to hit 2級　next year.

Finally, I don't see why many people would fuss about the 'unfair' advantage of the time gap between testing sites. Some people taking the test have jobs or requirements resting on the results, but I would guess that the majority take it for personal betterment, so who cares if others get the answers early? As the stereotypical wizened figure would say, "They're only cheating themselves." :p

wrightak Wrote:I don't see how they can get around this, if they've got the test in Hawaii, California, London, Japan and maybe some other places. It's not possible to have a time that overlaps for everyone and you can't stop people remembering questions and emailing them.

I think having 3 or 4 versions of the test staggered by time zone would be entirely sufficient, but considering the people who run this test accept giant piles of cash to do as little work as possible, I can't picture that happening.

JimmySeal Wrote:I think having 3 or 4 versions of the test staggered by time zone would be entirely sufficient, but considering the people who run this test accept giant piles of cash to do as little work as possible, I can't picture that happening.

Indeed. What the test really needs is writing and speaking tests for a true measure of your ability. However, taking and marking tests like those would cost a great deal of time and money...