For those deciding to punish yourselves, how are your cramming coming along? What’s your biggest dread (the whole thing?? 笑)? Feel free to vent below.
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What cramming? HAHAHAHAHA I am going to die…
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I feel you 
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I chose to take on an easier level than I thought I can handle just so that I can take it easy and not cram 
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I speak from experience when I say that you can go into the exam feeling woefully underprepared and expecting to fail and still pass with many more points than you deserved.
So, don’t worry too much 
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I took today off work to try a sample N5 test, using the correct timings and it was actually OK,even the listening! The only bits I got wrong were questions I wasn’t sure of the answer to so had to guess, so that’s given me a couple of grammar points to revise this month. Good luck everyone!
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Everything going 計画通り🙂
Just need to finish 4 practice books and N3 is going to be easy-peasy 
Gonna do the practice test on the weekend… hope I’m more prepared than I actually feel.
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Going for N2 then? 
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NO 
N3 
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Aww.
Good luck! I’m sure it’ll be easier than ReZero at least!
It’ll take less time for sure 
Or not? You think the bookclubs are preparation enough? 
Oh! I’ve been rudely ignoring the actual topic - my preparations are coming along nicely. 
I actually seem to be in line to finish about a week before the JLPT, so… what’s going on, haha, I did not expect this. 
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This year is my first time taking a JLPT and I signed up for N4. In terms of kanji I think I should be OK because of WaniKani but I’m not sure how hard I’ll find the listening within the testing conditions. I’m not really cramming, except for keeping up with WK and Japanese at school. Mostly I just want a good evaluation of my current level, as well as practice for when I try higher levels of the test later on.
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I signed up for N1. I actually haven’t studied in the last few months due to other obligations, but I’m not going to stress about it. I’ve been improving my conversation skills daily, applied to graduate school, and have almost finished an online certification for teaching English, all while working 55+ hours per week! Seems crazy when I write it out… Anyways, will squeeze some JLPT study time in but it’s not going to kill me if I don’t pass the test.
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Any good strategies for space-
grammar questions that people use? I’ve got a love/hate relationship with these questions…either understand it quickly or my hair catches fire considering all possibilities.
Here is some good advice shared to me from friends/tutors that I’ve been trying use with some success:
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If confused overwhelmed, just try to find one pair that is 100% certain and start there (either within the 4 or adjoining). Often, everything will fall into place for the rest of the order.
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Reading the order backwards, in other words, filling the spaces from last to first. Sometimes works for me but it makes sense given Japanese grammar structure.
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There is usually a particular grammar point structured for a particular circumstance so the prior context sentences are often there for a reason. Sometimes the N_level grammar being test is obvious but sometime not. I sometimes ask “was this in any recent study material”? This is quite frustrating.
Anyone else with strategies they like to use?
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Reading those hard books surely do help a lot with the reading sections, those will a piece of cake. But of course, we still need to dig deeper into the grammar, and to say nothing about listening.
All’s good for now.
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My biggest fear, that’s been confirmed to me every year since first taking the N3 in 2015, is the listening section. The classrooms at the test center have extremely bad acoustics and the cd players used are low quality, everything echoes awfully and even simple dialogues turn into garbled radio static. /sigh I haven’t come up with a good strategy to counter this. I have no problem doing listening at home, but how can I deal with this at the test center?
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Same here, first time and going for N4. I’m a little apprehensive about the listening part mostly because it’s not something you can really study for. Anyway, good luck!
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Thanks for sharing these! Finding at least one pair that’s 100% really jump starts things for me when tackling these questions.
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I really like your profile pic
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Haven’t ever done a JLPT before, doing N5 now and I’m not really sure what to expect, I’m not getting too stressed about it though, just hoping for it to be a learning experience.
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This was the only book I liked for listening because it gave practical listening tips/strategies rather than just raw exercises. Other than getting ‘comfortable’ with the format, I never know how to practice this section either. Admittedly, I’ve just been listening to things I enjoy…maybe not the best idea.
Speaking of questionable ideas, I vacationed my WK account since mid-Sept. I have plenty of other SRS material to keep me busy and increasing the spectrum of N2/1 material is a low priority right now.
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