It's not about learning factually wrong stuff, it's about focusing too much just on the skill set that passing N2 required to the detriment of some of my other skills. (Speaking/writing.)

Reading/listening/vocab-wise, I was fine. I could read and listen to all kinds of stuff. I just couldn't do output for squat, mostly because there wasn't any time for it. Now it's not so much of a problem for me, but 6 months ago, it was bad. It took a lot of work to get to the speaking/writing level I probably would have been at had I studied in a more responsible/balanced manner. That's all I meant by that.

I did the majority of my JLPT studying in the US, and I made the conscious choice to cut out the conversational stuff, and use that time for test prep. I passed the test, so that's good. But it wasn't necessarily smart. That's all I was getting at.

Hmmm I think that's fine to be honest, you pretty much need to know everything in N2 to speak or write about anything in a half decent manner anyway.. although I do think it's good to raise all skills at about the same level in general.

N2 passed.
B grade for both sections.

congrats jettyke! How has your japanese evolved since you arrived in Japan? Way better than N2 now I bet!

Passed the N1! Don't know my grade yet, but my tutor (who is also the administrator for the test here) was so excited that she called to tell me in advance. So cute. ^^ I really didn't think I had passed, so it was a bit of a surprise. I'd guess either I just scraped through, a staggering amount of my hunches were correct, or I'm just very, very good at guessing my way through multiple choice exams.

Feels kind of weird to be done with the JLPT now, though, having sat it at three different levels over the last five years. Guess I've just got to keep hitting the novels to continue expanding my vocabulary. Might move on to Korean, too, in an effort to sate my appetite for SOV grammar, politeness levels and particles. :'D

A year on from doing N1 I'd say that although preparing for it helped to improve my Japanese, mostly in terms of giving me a goal to aim for, there were some areas where it proved a bit of a hindrance.

The first would be that it encourages you to focus completely on reading and listening rather than speaking and reading, so the later skills improve proportionately slower.

Another major flaw I think is that it encourages a very superficial knowledge of words and grammar. If you know roughly what a word means then that is usually enough to guess the answer to a multiple choice question. Yes you need to know roughly what a grammar point means, but there is almost no need to know when that grammar structure is used compared to other similar ones, for example in terms of how formal it is.

CarolinaCG Wrote:congrats jettyke! How has your japanese evolved since you arrived in Japan? Way better than N2 now I bet!

Cannot really answer this right now. Guess I need more time to realize things.
My speaking improved, more than anything.

Ellen Wrote:Passed the N1! Don't know my grade yet

Now I do.

Language Knowledge: 38
Reading: 38
Listening: 42
Vocabulary: B
Grammar: A
Total: 118/180

Pretty much what I expected on the vocabulary and reading sections, as I didn't really do any JLPT-centric study, and my "study regime" basically consisted of just continuing to read Japanese novels and play Japanese games. When I actually knew the words being used I was fairly comfortable, which is likely why I ended up with an A for grammar, but there was a good chunk of vocabulary used that was so far outside of my comfort zone than it completely slaughtered me, and a couple of questions in the reading that I just couldn't get a grip on enough of the words in to make sense of. :'D Guess I'd better start dabbling in vocabulary from a bigger range of sources in future.

Pleasantly surprised at my listening grade. It was far and away my weakest section in both the sankyuu and nikyuu, as even when it's stuff I know nerves always get the better of me. Guess I must be improving there.

Has anyone got their results in the US / EU yet?

Zorlee Wrote:Has anyone got their results in the US / EU yet?

I'm in Britain. Granted I live in the city I sat the exam in which probably sped the process along somewhat, but I'm sure it won't be much longer now.

Cool! Thanks

Data on the % of passes for the December 2011 JLPT.

julianjalapeno Wrote:Data on the % of passes for the December 2011 JLPT.

Brutal, as always. Looks like December 2011 had the lowest pass rates so far since the introduction of the new JLPT. Congrats to all who've passed!

There isn't that big difference between the percentage of applicants passing the N4 exam and the one of the applicants passing the N2 exam. That's so encouraging!

Finally got my N1 results... about what I expected, since I just passed N2 this past summer, and because I spent pretty much -0- time prepping for the exam. I spent the past Fall in Japan, studying full-time at Yamasa, not really worrying about N1. (Took it in Nagoya.) That said, my results, while not great, weren't too terrible for a first try (except for reading):

Language Knowledge: 26/60
Reading: 14/60 (Ouch)
Listening: 26/60
Total: 66/180.

So just 34 points away from passing... not too bad, considering there were a lot of questions where I was in "Huh?" mode. It honestly felt like I was reading a different language from Japanese sometimes.

This question is probably slightly topic and a bit daft, but does the proctor just play every listening passage once at the same time for everyone or do you get to hear it multiple times? I'm assuming it's just once but I would like to think otherwise. Do you get to choose when to do the listening, or is it at a predetermined time? Sorry for the silly questions, but it's been surprisingly hard to find such details on the net.

Got a 92 on N1. Failed by 8 points .

But, I had a cold, so I choose to blame that, haha.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll pass in July.

barbouraj Wrote:This question is probably slightly topic and a bit daft, but does the proctor just play every listening passage once at the same time for everyone or do you get to hear it multiple times? I'm assuming it's just once but I would like to think otherwise. Do you get to choose when to do the listening, or is it at a predetermined time? Sorry for the silly questions, but it's been surprisingly hard to find such details on the net.

It's played once, and quite loudly. If it's not loud enough, there's a chance to raise your hand and say you can't hear it. Listening is a separate section from the readings, and everyone does it together when you come back from the break between sections.
There are instructions and an example question at the beginning of each section. Be careful not to mark the answer to the -example- on your answer sheet or all you'll push all your answers off into the wrong bubble.

Took the N1 just to test the waters (took and passed N2 last summer), and ended up passing.

Language Knowledge: 23/60
Vocabulary: B
Grammar: B
Reading: 43/60
Listening: 50/60
Total: 116/180.

Anyone else have that problem where you can read and understand passages but don't know the readings for a lot of kanji compounds you come across? That's what really pulled down my language knowledge score, I'm pretty sure.

I'm happy to have passed, but I feel kind of strange about it. I had always thought that by the time I could pass N1 I would be pretty awesome at Japanese, but I don't quite feel like I'm there yet... Oh well!

Holy cow, I passed N1. I thought I'd failed that listening test. It's funny, because apparently the reading went even worse.

Language Knowledge: 53/60
Vocab/Grammar: A/A
Reading: 27/60
Listening: 31/60
Total: 111/180

Time to get back from my 2 month hiatus; I've got a language to learn.

Devodev Wrote:Anyone else have that problem where you can read and understand passages but don't know the readings for a lot of kanji compounds you come across? That's what really pulled down my language knowledge score, I'm pretty sure.

I have the opposite problem. I know the reading of a compound and the individual meaning of each kanji, but the meaning of the compound as a whole will escape me. It's really annoying, and it brought down my reading score a lot.

I thought you had to get 80% or more to pass N1, is it only 60%?

lol i passed

42/60 vocab/grammar
23/60 reading
26/60 listening

passed by 2 points. looks like i mastered the useless part of japanese.

i don't even know how my listening score topped my reading score...

saritza Wrote:I thought you had to get 80% or more to pass N1, is it only 60%?

100/180 for N1, with 19/60 for individual sections.

in other words it's only 55.55%. In a test where you'll get 25% just by guessing, so to grab that extra 30% and pass you only need to correct about the remaining 75% of the test less than half the time.