Hey everyone,
Learned that I passed N3 a last week!
And hitting level 21 more than 4 years ago on WaniKani. WaniKani I attribute to actually the main reason why I passed the reading sections.
What do we think is probably the minimum level to pass N2 around here?
According to wkstats I passed N3 knowing around 70% of the vocab necessary.
Would level 33 really be enough for N2?
To be safe, I’m aiming to be somewhere between level 40-50 before the exam.
This shows kanji coverage, not vocabulary. Beyond that I believe that there’s no official list of JLPT kanji per level so this isn’t completely trustworthy. You may encounter kanji in the N2 test that don’t appear in whatever list wkstats uses to compute its tables.
I think the best way to gauge if you have the level will be to practice with mock tests and see how you fare.
Im aiming to pass level 51 for N2 in July!
Definitely this. Knowing your weak areas lets you focus on improving them.
Also bear in mind that:
If your skills are a bit uneven then you can generally hope to compensate for a lower score in one area with a better score elsewhere, as long as you aren’t so bad that you don’t make the section minimum. Personally I was always solid on the reading and grammar and vocab/kanji were my weakest area.
N2 is where reading speed and confidence really becomes important; I suspect it’s much harder to pass with weak reading and strong kanji than vice versa. Certainly once you’re at the 85% coverage level there are very quickly diminishing returns in getting up to 90 or 95% coverage.
Put another way:
I apportioned effort in my test focused learning accordingly.
[*] Bit vague, but what I mean is that they’re not expecting “native speaker speed” or anything close, but they do want you to be able to read a page or so of text and comprehend it without having to work through it word by word, and to be able to make good guesses from context about parts you’re not sure about without looking things up in a dictionary and without getting hung up for several minutes on it.
Nah, sorry, level 33 is way too high. If you want to pass N2, you need to reset to level 1 immediately. The key to fluency is forgetting everything and starting fresh. Trust the process
Congratulations for your achievement! 
I failed the N3 by 10 points, but I knew that I went there not prepared enough so my bad 
Yes, I would also say that reaching level 40 looks like a good idea to get ready for the kanji in the N2.
Thank you!
Luckily N3 doesn’t count for much, but it’s a good target to aim for nonetheless.
Yeah, I took practice tests and did target grammar review before the exam. And knew how to take the exam.
Tbh, I honestly think it’s criminal how much a candidate is rewarded for knowing the test structure and how the scoring works. As it tells you what sections to prioritize completing/skipping, when to listen really hard on the listening section and how much time to budget between the reading, vocab and grammar sections. All of which is test taking strategy. Which has nothing to do with Japanese language aptitude.
In my book, you passed too 
Thanks for the advice!
Yeah this is a great point, I did not take into account diminishing returns on the vocab.
And like you said also, the test is much more than just vocab and kanji. On N3, even with my 70.84% kanji knowledge from WaniKani that was 4-years old, it still was enough to sus out word meanings and context. Like your saying, I probably could get away with guessing from context and not knowing every vocab word.
My plan now is to hit somewhere between level 40-43 at the minimum. Then stop leveling up on WK only doing reviews, and shifting more time to reading comprehension and grammar.
I haven’t taken the N3 yet but I’m hoping to take the N2 in December and my aim is to reach 90% kanji coverage in WK. The passing percentage for each section is fairly low, so 90% is overkill. If I had to pick a minimum I’d probably aim for 80 or 85%.
But once I reach 90% I’ll probably stop taking new lessons.
I also do grammar and Japanese podcast (listening) lessons pretty much every day and I have set milestones for those too that once I pass I’ll switch to review-only.
The extra time provided as each resource becomes review-only will then be spent including even more native reading and listening. I already read every day but that last stretch will allow me to work on overall speed.
