I am writing the JLPT N5 in less then a month!

I am writing December 2nd in Toronto, good luck all!

Oh really, me as well! I guess youā€™ll be writing it at york university like me? :slight_smile:

Australian here! We use ā€˜sittingā€™ and ā€˜writingā€™ a test, from what Iā€™ve heard anyway.

Good luck for N5. You sound ready enough! Iā€™d recommend taking a few practice tests prior to the real thing - especially listening.
Iā€™m taking the N4 this year. Iā€™m pretty pessimistic though.

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Thatā€™s right. Maybe if a few more WKers are there we could grab lunch or something after?

Sure why not! I donā€™t mind at all! Are you excited about the test?

Iā€™m sure you will do great! Let us know how things go!

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Yes, thought I regret not pushing myself to going for the N4. Iā€™ve been studying pretty seriously for the last 4 months, but I have studied on-and-off for 5 years, so I have a pretty solid vocab base at least. This should be a good judge of where I currently am in my studies at least.

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Its funny, I feel the same way but I did not want to risk it and fail the N4 by a couple points. I know that I will not get perfect on the N5, but I think I have a shot of doing well enough. I really hope we can all do well!

ā€œIā€™m writing the JLPT N5ā€, to me, sounds like itā€™s being said by someone that is designing the test. lol

Indeed, we had that conversation earlier. Itā€™s just how Canadians speak, apparently.

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Well yesterday I wrote the N5 and I think I feel okay about it. The Vocab section was not hard at all. I would say that if you are at least level 5 or higher on Wanikani and read through half of Genki you should have no issues with that section at all.

The knowledge and grammar sections seemed pretty fair I went through it once and was able to answer more than half of the answers, I then went back and answered the ones that confused me when I first looked at them. By this point in the test, my confidence is still somewhat high. I would say that if you can do JLPT practice exam knowledge and grammar section, you should be more than ready to pass the real one as it seemed to be a little bit more fair than the practice exam that you can buy online.

I feel like myself and everyone around me had some difficulty with the listening section. It was fast and sometimes I think I had the right answer and other times I blanked and was not sure what the answer was. I am a little worried about this section and that it will weigh me down.

Over all, I had a fun experience writing it, it was really cool to see that there were other like minded people in person who are trying to improve their Japanese language skills. No matter what happens I am going to try and go for it again next year. I am going to try and keep my study routine up so that I donā€™t give up! I hope that everyone did their best and passed the test.

How did you do @sagefreke @Airdramon ?

I actually have a question for you guys, after the test, two gentle man were talking behind me about the grading of the test and I am a little confused, one guy was saying that the first two sections are combined together while listening is on its own and that if you score great in the first two sections, even if you do bad in the listening you should be okay? Does this make sense to anyone? I think they said you need to get 100/180 to pass correct, but there are 120 possible points to score in the first two sections I think.

If anyone can clear that up, that would be greatly appreciated and maybe make me feel better or worse about the test lol

Also to anyone that wrote it at York University I was in group N5A!

Bye for now!

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The sections have minimum scores for passing. So what they said is only true to a certain extent. If you got a 120 in the Language Knowledge / Reading section and a 0 in Listening, you would actually fail, because you need at least 19 points in Listening to not fail the section.

But what combining Language Knowledge with Reading does is it means you could theoretically get a 0 in Reading and have Language Knowledge save you. At higher levels, Language Knowledge, Reading, and Listening each have their own minimum score.

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Ah, we were in the same room, I was sitting toward the back left side of the room.

I would say I had a similar experience to yours, I frankly just spaced out a couple times during the listening and missed the key point. Often I would miss the initial question so I wouldnā€™t really know what I needed to focus on during the dialogue.

Vocab and kanji was definitely the easiest, I was more than prepared at my current WK level.

So it was not just me that spaced out ?:joy: Iā€™m worried that the listening will be the end of me but we have to stay positive, its in the past and Iā€™m sure we both did our best!

Do you know anything about the listening marking scheme? I feel like there were maybe 16-17 questions in the listening section. What would equal 19 points in the section?

Yup, Iā€™m going to get a bit more serious about listening practice now, since Iā€™m aiming for N3 next December. My strategy going forward will be shifting towards exposing myself to more native materials, while still keeping up with my daily SRS of course. Do you listen to any podcasts or anything like that?

Wow, is it really that short? Iā€™ve actually never taken N5. I would say itā€™s about 1/3 of the questions, but they do get weighted. So if something was unintentionally really hard and everyone does terrible on it, they take that into account. Because of that itā€™s not possible to say with certainty that X right answers equals passing.

For my listening practice I use Pimsleur its an audio only source that teaches you words through native conversation, I think they have 5 levels, each having 30, 30 minute podcasts in each level. I have completed the first two levels so far. But I heard the Japanese pod 101 is a better resource. What about you?

Thanks for the feedbackā€¦glad to hear it went wellā€¦

Yeah it is really that short, maybe in higher levels they add more questions to the listening portion. Out of all the sections it had the least amount of material in it. My thinking is that they donā€™t place so much emphasis on it this time around.