At my test venue (Miami N1), the proctor balanced a clock on the top of the whiteboard, but it fell five feet down into the space between the whiteboard and the wall and shattered very loudly…
It was a good catharsis.
7 Likes
What does it say?
1 Like
Houhou and Jisho.org both label it with “JLPT N1” when I search for it. But then again, I don’t know if that’s based on an official list or not.
1 Like
The only thing that determines the level of any word is what level it shows up on.
Presumably 和やか has shown up on N1 before, and whenever these lists were cobbled together, that’s what level it had been on. But a word being on N1 doesn’t mean it can’t show up lower. It just wasn’t on whatever test the person who made the list was looking at, at that time.
The JLPT doesn’t publish anything like a kanji list or vocab list. It’s not unusual for things that are not listed as being on any level of the JLPT to show up on the real test.
Things like Jisho are a decent starting point, but I’d say that’s all. You can infer that if it’s N1 on Jisho, that it won’t be on N5, but beyond that it’s hard to say things definitively.
5 Likes
I took N4 in Chicago. We had a digital clock in the room and the proctor made an announcement for 10 minutes remaining.
1 Like
Does it say anything or is it just gibberish?
Been studying japanese for 4 months and took N5 yesterday!
Wani has been a big help with my Kanji…too bad there was almost no Kanji on the N5 test! lol.
I’m 90% sure I passed with flying colors…but that 10% that thinks I made some horrible series of mistakes is ever gnawing. Can’t wait to get the results. How long does it usually take?
1 Like
Took N2 this weekend. Didn’t have great luck with vocab and know I got at least four wrong there. But grammar and reading both felt good, so going into listening I was feeling pretty confident I could pass anyway with those making up for it. Kanji questions were all freebies (thanks, WK).
However, I think I lost on listening. I aced it on the N3 six months ago and had been consistently passing practice tests recently, so I wasn’t too concerned about it going in, but that went significantly rougher than any recent practice session. I’m not sure if it was just fatigue or if it was genuinely a harder question set (I did get hit again by unknown vocab in a few in the middle), but I think it did me in. I also completely boned myself on the second-to-last question (which should have been free) by expecting it to go in a different direction. I forgot the final questions tend to take the format of two people selecting different things from a list, so when the prompt said a professor was introducing graduated students to talk about their work, I thought that was all I needed to listen for. When it then switched to two students talking about who they would submit questions to, it took me long enough to get my bearings again and figure out what was going on that I missed the girl’s selection. I was able to narrow it down to two but just after finishing was almost positive I picked the wrong one. Pretty sure I got the boy’s.
Oh well. I’ll just have to keep going making listening fluency a focus. I also didn’t have time to actually cover the range of N2 vocab coming off the N3 this summer, which couldn’t be helped, so I’ll keep plugging away at that too.
There is the faintest, faintest hope I got enough of the “choose the appropriate response” listening questions, and made good enough educated guesses on the shaky ones (there was only one I felt really truly at a loss for; generally I could narrow it down to two) to scrape together enough points to pass that section and then skirt by on the overall test, but even if that’s the case, it’d be such a skin-of-your-teeth finish that I’d want to take it again in summer anyway. Also not holding my breath for that. I also could have bombed even worse than I thought. I really don’t know.
3 Likes
Took the N4. That feel when WaniKani is just TOO helpful x’D I couldn’t read the kana for the life of me, haha. It was hilarious hearing other people there saying the kanji was so hard, when I was completely lost reading the hiragana!
Have doubts that I passed. But I’m not too bummed about it. I took it just to take it, never was part of my goals. 
4 Likes
Took N2 yesterday. Unless I pass through the magic of multiple choice questions and random luck, I failed hard. I passed N3 6 months ago. At the time I felt it was appropriate for my level. I go to Japanese language school full-time in Tokyo. Even though the pace is fast, 6 months from N3->N2 is simply not enough.
Kanji and vocab were fine thanks to wanikani. Grammar had stuff I haven’t learned yet, as well as long conjugations which are still really confusing for me. Reading was a total disaster as expected.
The listening section really surprised me. I’ve been taking N2 prep classes, doing mock tests and such for a few months. The actual test was MUCH harder than any of the prep material (I failed the prep material too). In particular, I was rather annoyed with the lists of names and places where the audio was too fast to take notes even in my own language. Is it really a language skill to be able to remember lists of more than 3 names along with various associated info? I would have gotten those 2 questions wrong in English as well. 
At this point I’m wondering if another 6 months of school (for a total of 2 years of full-time language school… ugh) will be enough to be able to pass…
4 Likes
Took N2 yesterday. Unless I pass through the magic of multiple choice questions and random luck, I failed hard. I passed N3 6 months ago. At the time I felt it was appropriate for my level. I go to Japanese language school full-time in Tokyo. Even though the pace is fast, 6 months from N3->N2 is simply not enough.
'Ey, another member of the “N2 six months after N3” club!
Originally I wasn’t going to take it until July, but then I figured I’d be done with all the Sou-Matome books by then, so it became a “Why not, for the experience?” thing. Then I was getting passing scores on practice material and it became an, “Oh shit, there is a non-zero chance; better start taking this seriously” thing.
Oh well. I told myself the real goal was still the July pass, so I’ll just keep going with that in mind, focusing on areas that felt weak.
The listening section really surprised me. I’ve been taking N2 prep classes, doing mock tests and such for a few months. The actual test was MUCH harder than any of the prep material (I failed the prep material too).
Okay, good. It wasn’t just me. (And I was passing prep material.)
1 Like
Okay, good. It wasn’t just me. (And I was passing prep material.)
My classmates as well. Everyone thought there was a mistake and maybe they gave us the N1 listening test.
I am so relieved to hear other people saying the N2 Listening round was shit-hard this time.
It really was. Conversely, I remember the N3 Listening section feeling much easier than all my practice materials in July.
Edit–It didn’t seem out of scope for N2, in terms of content and vocab, but the speed and question design definitely felt harder than what I was used to. Again, I was often able to narrow it down to two, but then left with no confidence after that. Like, “Well, I thought I heard this, but then again, maybe it was this thing…”
I’m glad other people thought so too (about the whole test). I came in very prepared and was blown away by the general difficulty. Oh well, there’s always July should we fail 
First time taking the test. Took the N5 and boy was it an experience.
Confidence slowly eroding from section to section.
Listening was the one part I was most worried about. And it did not disappoint. I had spent solid time doing mock listening tests and reviews, and still you get in there and all it takes is a couple of missed words and you are lost!
Let the scoring gods be in my favour! Bring on the results in Feb!
Hope everyone else did well and enjoyed the test.
4 Likes
I guess hearing confirmation that the listening section was much harder than anticipated makes me feel better (and perhaps it was unfair?) that we had a chance to listen to a few questions again… but for one or two I heard different information from the first playing (and missed the parts that I heard before), it was a little overwhelming… It was hard to focus on the conversation when you’re grasping at straws for all the previous words and information you heard… But yes, agreed that the material I listened to before made it seem like the listening section for N2 would be easier than it was. (Maybe they’re trying to break that image…?)
1 Like
Wait, seriously though, there was a passage about a boy who couldn’t remember people’s names…? Oh no…
Thinking back, I think I know which one you’re referring to, but I thought he couldn’t write or something? I went through that one pretty fast bc I was starting to run out of time and my brain was starting to reach that point where even words you learnt on Day 1 of Japanese class stop making sense. 
Overall, I have noo idea how that went. I studied kinda hard right after taking the N3 in July and then I just got lazy. I haven’t even managed to keep up with my WK reviews (1482 staring at me from the top of the page right now 
).
I crammed all the grammar yesterday watching Nihongonomori’s video of all N2 grammar and that section at least went really well. I think the only question I wasn’t quite sure about was the very last one, and even on that I was still 80% confident in my answer.
Kanji was mostly ok I think but I was guessing hard on a lot of the vocabulary. I could make a lot of at least educated guesses based on the kanji but there were also questions where I was taking complete shots in the dark.
Reading would have been ok had I paced myself better and not insisted on reading each passage thoroughly to confirm my answer choices after having already found the answer. I really should have done reading first and left grammar to the end because it’s what I find easiest. I just put down C for the last 5 questions and skimmed the two passages before that to make somewhat educated guesses. Still made it through further than I did on the practice test at least. Idk hopefully it’s enough to scrape a pass.
Listening, um, what… DEFINITELY harder than I expected. When I took the official practice test on the JLPT website, I got 100% on the listening section so I didn’t bother studying for it explicitly at all since I had limited time and other areas that needed more focus (ahem, vocabulary which I barely ended up studying either but…yeah). This was much harder, although I think one of the reasons for that was still unknown vocabulary… in addition to the fact that I was almost falling asleep since I got less than 3 hours the night before.
Damn, I didn’t think I would end up writing so much but I mostly unloaded what I needed to after taking that exam. It doesn’t really matter if I pass or not because this was more for me to figure out where exactly I’m at in my Japanese proficiency than to use it for anything. I got almost full marks on the N3 in July and finished the reading section in that one with like 30-40 mins to spare, but the fact that I struggled on the N2 means it was a lot more suited to actually test my level.
TL;DR: N2 listening was rip, grammar was awesome, vocab mehhhhhhh, reading I ran out of time. Must learn more vocabs and practice reading for next time until I can go faster and find it less mentally taxing.
みんな、お疲れさまでした！
1 Like
So now that we’re past the point where people are taking the tests, I was pretty pleased to see two words that I had learned on the vocab app that I use, かさばる and ありあり. With that app I learned several hundred words over the months leading up to the test, but to have ones directly show up on the test felt good.
7 Likes
What vocab app do you use? I’m a little disappointed with 新完全マスター; none of the words from the vocab section (that I can remember) were in there.
Also, did anyone else taking the N1 feel like the listening section was hard? Especially the last 問題5 section.
2 Likes
yep, i thought the listening was a lot harder than most practice tests.
3 Likes