I took the N3 this past December in Japan. Pass or fail, I’m aiming for N2 in July (also in Japan, obvi). I probably won’t pass it, but I’m going to attempt it anyway.
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I’m also tempted to go for one JLPT level higher than i’m comfortable with.
If i pass easily, then i haven’t learned much or assessed my progress to the next level,
and i want to reach at least N2 eventually anyways.
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That’s nice! Now I am curious about what you’re working on! What kind of laboratory are you working in? I am involved in aerospace engineering.
I’m working as a Post-Doc in genetics/microbiology/molecular biology (a bit of all of it 
) in a university-associated research lab.
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That’s really helpful, thankyou! 
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Oh that’s way too high for that level then, assuming you can do it in all the sections. You might even have a shot at passing N4 like that.
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N5 in Summer, N4 in Winter.
I’m pretty confident that I can pass N5 by then, but N4 is going to be a close cut.
I haven’t taken any JLPT so far.
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I live in Japan and did my degree in Human genetics, worked in genetic toxicology. Don’t do anything with it now though, I only have a BSc so probably not useful here where everyone has a Masters or phd. I got married and had kids…no I wonder if i’ll ever go back into science.
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As long as I passed my N5 in December, I’ll be going for N4 in July! I’ll probably then wait a year to do N3 as I want more time to take everything in and not rush with studying for the December exam.
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I took N4 in December. It was really difficult for me. Even if I do pass somehow I’ll keep taking the N4 until it seems easy.
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Unfortunately in Vienna they only do JLPTs in December.
Maybe i’ll make a JLPT trip to Hamburg or Düsseldorf in July ^^
or to Budapest…
i kinda wanna make one safe attempt and one outrageous one at N2,
just to get an impression of what my goal is and how much i’m missing.
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Attempting to pass N3 in december! I should be ~lvl 60 by then (just to be extra sure on the kanji side of things lol). Also doing BunPro, currently towards the end of N4 stuff, and Torii 10K vocab (~10 words a day). Not doing any specific N3 material, though. My biggest weak point is and will be listening - others probably relate to this. Trying out different podcast but it´s really hard.
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Make sure you do some reading practice too!
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My main tools are also WK, Bunpro and Torii, though the further i get, the more i’ll do reading and listening, which will also become more valuable.
Also, people say that for listening it’s easier to learn from visual media, especially with real actors/people on TV, because there are more visual cues.
I find the language learning with netflix extension e.g. on Terrace House very instructional.
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Thanks for bringing this up, i forgot to mention it. Doing 1 nhk easy article per day at the moment, though i´m feeling it´s already becoming too easy. I fear i´ll get into this weird spot where anything curated stops teaching me anything, yet any kind of native material makes my brain explode…
@Saimin ,
yeah that´s definitely a good combo, those three!
I tried getting into Terrace House, but i´m not fond of reality tv, which is why i dropped it soon after. Visual cues certainly help, though!
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Yeah, i also don’t need reality TV, but what i like about Terrace House is that you basically get to see normal people talking casual language in everyday situations, which is a large part of Japanese and otherwise hard to get, maybe slice of life anime is almost as good. TV dramas and anything scripted often use exaggerated and somewhat artificial language.
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imo, it’s better for a challenge rather than a pass. You could get 100% on the N4, but I feel narrow pass on the N3 would feel better.
Good luck in any case, I was 99% sure I failed the N4 December 2018, but turns out I actually passed. Hopefully it’s the same case for you. 
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Interesting… afaik, you don’t get your answers or explanations of what you did wrong back, right? Just a number for each category and a final pass/fail verdict, if memory manages to serve me correctly for once. I suppose it makes sense, though; I’m not sure how I’m surprised that challenging yourself will make you learn better!
By the way, any comments on what the N4 was like? I’ve never even taken a single exam, but I’d like to start with N4 due to the same situation above. I’ve heard people say that each test contains about twice as much information as the last, leading to the N1 having 16x as much covered material… does that sound about right? Sorry if it seems like I’m prodding, I just want to be as prepared as I can for whichever test I end up taking in December!
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When you say you haven’t had an exam before, do you mean outside of school or including schooling? It’s just like any other exam under test conditions - quite room, no phones, no watches, very limited amount of things allowed on your desk (pencil, rubber), bags in another room or at the back of the room. If you violate their rules, you get failed. It’s pretty standard for exams.
Listening was far, far, FAR harder than any of the N4 listening practice exams and material. I wish I knew that before going in, I did really well in all the listening preparation, so the exam’s listening section really threw me. The dialogue seemed SO much faster than in the practice material.
The Kanji section was so easy I was worried I’d accidentally gone into the N5 exam, but I was level 30 in WaniKani at the time.
As for the content, that seems about right, with N5 only covering 100 Kanji and N1 covering 2000. I’ve only taken the N4 exam and I’m only studying for the N3 now, but it doesn’t seem too much of a jump so far.
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I had the same problem with N3. I only did one practice test and got 80% in listening, so I figured I’d be fine. But it was so much harder on the real test. I’m just hoping to squeeze by with ~50% at this point, but we’ll see.
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