I'm taking N1 this time, though I'm not overly confident that I will pass. I passed N2 in 2010, but I'm still hung up on some of the subtle differences in N1 grammar. I haven't studied with the sole purpose of passing N1 as much as I would have liked to since I was using Japanese in my company on a daily(ish) basis and didn't feel like coming home every night and then studying Japanese (I've since left that job so I've had more time to study before the exam). Vocab, reading and listening should be OK, but the grammar has me worried...

All I can say is good luck to all that are taking it this year. I would take it this year if it had been offered where I live currently. Oh well.

I'll be do N3 this Sunday, but I'm wondering if maybe I should have signed up for N2 after taking the sample questions out of curiosity and then looking at N2 vocab and grammar lists. I followed some massive N3 lists for vocab and grammar, and it seems like there was still some confusion in these lists as to what belonged in N3 versus N2. I was thinking it was weird that the number of vocab words in N3 to N1 went 2780 in N3, 1055 in N2 and 2054 in N1, but it's nice to feel ahead for the first time all year.

I guess I don't have any urgent needs for N2 certificate just quite yet, so I think a hopefully easy N3 pass will mean I'll be able to study a little more freely next year and focus less on lists.

imabi Wrote:All I can say is good luck to all that are taking it this year. I would take it this year if it had been offered where I live currently. Oh well.

I definitely wish they offered it more in the US and still did it twice a year here. I'll be driving 6 1/2 hours out to Chicago, taking the test and then driving 6 1/2 hours back to Minneapolis.

Taking the N1 for the first (and I hope last) time.
The only preparation I really did is cramming all the N1 designated vocabulary in Anki. I'm too stingy to buy the prep books, and even if I had them, I'm too lazy to learn the boring grammar...
For the dreaded 読解, I know I improved my reading speed the last few months by reading light novels; the problem is, the texts we get in the JLPT use more formal/technical/boring words that I probably know but too passively (hence slowed down recognition).
For the 聴解, I'll see what I got out of this summer's 3 months Japan immersion and some raw drama/anime watching...

The test place is about 15 minutes from my apartment door.
Living in Paris is awesome.

N1 tomorrow in kyoto university! Haven't done that much preparation (man, it's boring!)

CarolinaCG Wrote:N1 tomorrow in kyoto university! Haven't done that much preparation (man, it's boring!)

Woot, I'm taking it at Kyodai too.

N2 on Sunday at University of Washington. I won't pass. I bought the requisite study books, but have settled on massive input for preparation instead. Last two weeks have been less intense than the preceding seven months, as I was distracted by falling in love and making plans for the end of December when my 彼女 comes back from Italy.

If I pass, I'll be delighted. (Shocked, really.) If not - eh. Next year. The push to prepare for N2 got me to the point where I can read Japanese news, make my way through online articles and short stories, and hold decent conversations with Japanese people. I have a firm foundation for continuing to read and listen to Japanese every day, and thus increase my familiarity and comfort with the language over the coming years. That's success in my book.

Current plan is to take N2, and just keep studying after that up through the summer, at which point I'm going to add Korean to my language study plate.

N1 this Sunday at York University. I have to go early apparently because of the need to registrar[ID+voucher required], they do a short orientation and then place you in the right lecture halls/rooms.
I know I won't get it. I didn't prepare enough and I became lazy doing those prep books.
I know I learn best with digital learning via Anki. I'll be doing mock tests today and will head to bed early.

Just came back from the N2 here in Melbourne. Reading section was a little trickier than I expected, but overall it wasn't too bad at all. The last two questions in the listening section were annoying since I only realised halfway through that you're actually supposed to take notes. If you're yet to sit the test then it's a good idea to keep this in mind.

Was anyone else taken by surprise by the N1 文字語彙? Despite the 5+ practice tests and constant vocab drilling, it was my first time to see several of the keywords.

vileru Wrote:Was anyone else taken by surprise by the N1 文字語彙? Despite the 5+ practice tests and constant vocab drilling, it was my first time to see several of the keywords.

I was. When I was doing the practice tests I probably new the meanings and readings of 70-80% of words. In this exam I was making educated guesses for around half of them.

N1 listening was either hard or I was too tired to focus (was really sleepy during listening)... should have taken something to eat and drink, big, big mistake...

Screw that last question on the N2 listening. The last N2 test had pretty much the same dam kind of question where you had to listen to a bunch of crap about days and then listen to people talk about it. Pretty sure I missed this one just the same as the last. I can't take notes and listen to Japanese at the same time, my brain isn't wired that way.

vix86 Wrote:I can't take notes and listen to Japanese at the same time, my brain isn't wired that way.

Ditto. Even though I was only taking N3 and didn't have that kind of questions, I really shot myself in the foot the few times I tried to jot things down while listening. I wonder if it's worth it to practise this skill for the next test.

As for the rest of it, I think it went pretty well. I did have at least one major brainfart when I picked the right answer but then erased it and replaced it with the wrong one - confused うっかり and がっかり. I hate this kind of adverbs/adjectives (すっかり、はっきり、ぱっちり、たっぷり...) so, so much. The reading section was easier than I expected though.

N1 in DC in an hour or two. I don't think I have much of a chance, but I'll give it a shot anyway. I just wish it wasn't so darn cold here!

"Studying" involved watching some Japanese TV and listening to the news and Tokyo Local, with some reading... Yeah, not really holding my breath on this one.

Well, that was harder than I thought (took the N3). Bottomline is barely had any time to read the questions, even though I wasn't really thrown off by either vocab or grammar, probably because I didn't do enough sentence mining (2000 on a 5000 objective). I honestly don't know if I will pass, but that was a nice experience nevertheless. Can see all the work required for the N2. Oh my.

Ah, yeah Carolina, had some insomnia too, so the listening part almost felt like a nightmare I couldn't wake up from. lol

2nd attempt at N2 in Warsaw, I'm not optimistic about the result. I feel I've made considerable progress since my first time but still I wasn't quick enough to read everything (had to "guess" 8 answers).
Vocab wasn't spectacular (I don't SRS anymore) but I think I've more than made up for it by better grammar (read all points from DoIJG), reading was bad but not nearly as bad as last time (much better at "glancing" information). My biggest disappointment was listening, I felt like nothing has changed but in reality I'm so much better than I was before.

I just wish I got better results in every category, don't even need to pass.

[Zgarbas]

I actually did take notes during the last question, buuuut I was expecting the question to be about the programme that shachou talks about, not about that last bit between the employees. So my notes were useless. Ugh.

I think I'ma fail. Had lapsus throughout the entire test. Didn't encounter words I didn't know, but had severe trouble remembering the fine details. Exams really wear me out. Also, damn all points about shachou. I hate shachou >.<. And strawberries. Also, though I didn't have many issues understanding the texts for the reading section, when it came to answering the questions I had issues finding anything relevant, or finding too many answers that fit.... Ugh.

Plus sides... exam type issues aside, I think I did ok. Need to practice more JLPT, less Japanese in general, I think. Listening went somewhat better than expected, but that's still not too good. I wish I could find it as easy to answer the silly exam questions in Japanese as it is in English =/.

The JLPT definitely has its own specific skillset to do well, I think. I was pretty peeved at the last questions in the Listening for the fact that it more so tests your memory (or at least your frantic note taking ability) rather than purely 'listening' comprehension.

For the longer texts in the Reading section, I find that if more than one answer "looks right", then it helps to narrow down on those ones and specifically look at whether what is mentioned in the answer is specifically mentioned in the text itself. Often you'll find an answer that looks right and seems to be paraphrasing the text, but ends up making some new point that was never mentioned in the text.

Also, as usual the Chinese websites have the full answers up. Here's the URL containing answers for N1-N3 (N4 and N5 aren't available yet):

http://jp.hjenglish.com/new/zt/JLPTdaan/

Scroll down and click the section you wish to see the answers for (will take you to another page, just click the first link that appears. Also click '打包下载' at the far right if you want to download as a RAR).

Note: I have seen some conflicting answers to a few of the exam questions on several Chinese sites, so keep that in mind. I believe the answers in the link I've provided are the correct ones though. For now, if you didn't write down your answers on something (i.e. the test voucher), you'll have to wait until a copy of the test paper itself becomes available. I recorded my answers for the Vocab/Grammar/Reading sections, but for some reason forgot to do so for the Listening section.

Guoguodi can you pm me that site? I took the test this afternoon and i wanna see how i did.

HisshouBuraiKen Wrote:Guoguodi can you pm me that site? I took the test this afternoon and i wanna see how i did.

+1

vix86 Wrote:Screw that last question on the N2 listening. The last N2 test had pretty much the same dam kind of question where you had to listen to a bunch of crap about days and then listen to people talk about it. Pretty sure I missed this one just the same as the last. I can't take notes and listen to Japanese at the same time, my brain isn't wired that way.

Oh good, we hated the same question. :-p

Just back from N2 in Seattle. Very hard for me. 読解 was a LOT harder than I expected it to be, and the 文法 questions easier than I assumed. As a result, I totally dived on 読解, leaving myself without even enough time to finish all of the readings.

I'm definitely going to drill more for the test itself next time around, especially 読解 and 聴解. If I had spent more time with the 新完全マスター２級聴解 book, I probably would've done way better on that section. I'll probably also pick up the 読解 book mid-year or so.

PM it to me too please, I took the test yesterday and am dying to know what the correct answer was on the last listening question (N1) and a few other ones. What book did the man end up with? He seemed set on the Old-man book, but then he asked that about the love triangle in book #1 however he didn't seem so interested when the woman told him there wasn't one...

Seeing as pretty much everyone should have finished the test by now, I've re-added the link to the answers in my previous post. Not that it's some super-secret site or anything; a quick search on Google works wonders

anragreg Wrote:PM it to me too please, I took the test yesterday and am dying to know what the correct answer was on the last listening question (N1) and a few other ones. What book did the man end up with? He seemed set on the Old-man book, but then he asked that about the love triangle in book #1 however he didn't seem so interested when the woman told him there wasn't one...

If I am correct, the woman liked book #2 the most, and the man decided to read book #1. When they were collecting the tests, most of the other answers for the last two questions I saw were identical to mine (yes, I peeked).