
No fun at all.

No fun at all.
Ugh. And the way they word it. They don’t state the total score but rather “one more point” to pass. But I think you did a lot better than last time if I remember correctly.
This was the first time I ever took 2級. If you are talking about 準2級 and 3級, on both I got scores like 163 and 165, which would have been enough.
Oh well, you can take the CBT exam as many times as you want. Not giving up now that I got to 159. Just booked another date.
Yeah it’s a bummer that they increased the grade for passing for 2級 from the previous levels. But about how it is difficult to write right on the CBT tablet, it seems the examiners aren’t as picky as I thought. If they were going to be strict as heck for strokes touching and what not, going from what you stated in your previous post, you probably would have received an even lower score.
What makes you say that? It’s not like we can see any of the answers in question.
Just going by what SynchroPC stated previously about the difficulty of writing precisely on the CBT exam’s tablet. I wish we had the actual answers to see what was allowed.
I haven’t found it particularly difficult to write precisely. Maybe it does take some getting used to. I’ve done it about 6 times now. You surely can’t erase and redraw the equivalent of pixel-level changes with a pencil on paper. You’d be better off erasing the whole character. But you can do that on the tablet.
I just hope they don’t care if the square (90 degree) corners meet exactly on the kanji. I haven’t exactly been paying attention to that. Like for 口, the little extra stroke overhang sticking out at the left and right bottom. I usually write it as a square with the corners exactly meeting. I mentioned this before in this thread and it seemed people thought this didn’t matter. As long as the hane, tome, etc., endings were correct,
Edit: I think you responded previously that a perfect rectangle is okay.
And thanks for your experience with the CBT exam. It’s not offered in the USA so I wouldn’t be able to take it.
The letter of shame just arrived, and I was really surprised when I found out the 合格点 was 155, instead of the expected 160.
Went to search about it and found out the following in the Kanken website, which although I have read several times, I had never noticed it. It even addresses 2級 specifically.
@Leebo, I know you took Kanken several times, have you ever noticed the passing mark not being the expected 70% or 80%, too?
It reads like they grade on a slight curve for 2級. So if too many people pass they lower the passing grade a bit. I never saw this mentioned anywhere else.
You are taking the paper Kanken test, no?
Looking at the sample test I have (36x24cm) made me wonder if the real paper sheet for the test was larger, but I can’t remember very well.
Why I ask is, I am trying to train writing in the size that is small enough but not too small.
Currently I am using a 原稿用紙 notebook with squares of 8x8 mm and it seems that size would fit to my sample test.
However it is too small for me to distinguish very well between hane and tome and it feels a bit uncomfortable small.
Which size are you writing, or is this something you don’t think about too much?
I figured it out by myself, but just in case someone is interested in this information:
The sample test says in large letters 原寸大, which I didn’t notice because I didn’t know the meaning (that’s the original size). The empty column is 1cm wide, so I am training now with 1x1 cm squares.
Makes me wonder how difficult kanjis from higher levels fit in there.
I think I am using 8 mm or 1 cm squares for each kanji. I’m using graph paper so there are center lines that help during practice but won’t be there during the test. I’ve read people say that the answer sheet for the regular test is larger than that for the sample tests but I don’t know if I remember that correctly. The kanken org actually sells special test books with everything in actual test size. They are not updated every year like the normal green test books for each level.
You can get the kanken test prep books in any book store pretty much (in Japan). I’ve gone through a few of them, but I’ve never taken the actual test. They ask you which stroke is number 3, or they ask you to write the reading in a given word, stuff like that. So it’s not just identifying the kanji and understanding its meaning.
It’s pretty cool that did it!.
One more week cramming and done. Didn’t do that amazing on the exam and was worried until now about having failed again, to be honest. But done. The full report should arrive in two or three days, but I doubt I got anything much higher than 160 (maybe even less, considering the 155 possibility). It must have been extremely close to the passing mark.

Congrats. I read it wrong before. I thought they sometimes increase the passing grade but it was actually decreased to 155 sometimes.
Congratulations! Are you taking the next stage as well?
準1?Definitely not, hahaha
While I do not completely discard taking 準1 sometime later in life, for now I’m fine. Taking 漢検2級 was the last of my Japanese goals I set when I came to Japan, so for now I’ll just focus on work and dating for a while. Maybe do some shadowing for pronunciation, but that is it.
Maybe after some years I could get in the mood for 準1, dunno. But I’m definitely not the type of person who goes to 1級, hahaha
That’s maybe a better choice to spent your time ![]()
I thought I stop at pre 2, but with the mnemonics suddenly it is so much easier to remember Kanji, I might try to go higher. And I am too old to date ![]()
But I am wondering if there is anyone who is aiming at passing the 1級.
I’m near the end of my 四字熟語 deck. Two months flew by fast! For vocabulary, I usually put the kanji on the front of a card and the reading and meaning on the back. But I think it will be hard to remember the kanji sequence for each 四字熟語 this way because there are 4 characters instead of the more common 2 characters for normal words. Should I now alter the cards and put the reading and the meaning on the front of the card, and the kanji on the back? This fits with how the kanken tests, giving you the kana and having to write the kanji. I wouldn’t do this for regular words but I may treat this as a separate case. What do you all think?