It’s the first rime I’m following the JLPT updates of test takers (since I’m planning on taking it myself) so I don’t know whether this is the normal consensus in the aftermath?
I just read through the updates on twt and I saw several ppl that took the N1 talk about how it was particularly hard this time. And someone else (no idea which level) talked about the difficulty of the listening portion 
Right now I’m whining that I won’t even get minimal pass in listening, so I’m agreeing with you all. 
I took N1 today and I had the same feeling during the vocabulary section, I think I knew only three words and had to completely guess all the others…
Grammar was better than I expected, I studied with Bunpo and a lot of patterns I learned there were on the test. I’m not going to score high but I wasn’t as lost as during the vocabulary section.
Reading was hard. I have no idea what my score is going to be.
Listening was alright for me, it’s my strongest point so it better had to be but except 3-4 audios, I was confident in my answers.
I’m glad I took N1 anyway because now I know exactly what I need to focus on (VOCABULARY 
and I’m going to keep reading articles about every possible subject)
お疲れ様 to everyone!!!
Yeah, never count yourself out until the results are published. The way they write and grade it, question difficulty is factored into the calculated score. There are always some “too hard” questions on there. There aren’t too many people who leave the test 100% sure they definitely passed it.
The last part of N1 listening was not as misleading as some of the shorter ones.
Also took N1 yesterday and man, the vocab section, which I usually feel great about while studying, was a doozy. Plenty of words I’d never seen and had to make educated guesses on.
That being said, I felt really good about grammar (thanks, 多読!) and decent about the reading. Listening would’ve been better, except we were on the 6th floor and had a longish earthquake during the 2nd question of the entire section, which threw me off for the remainder of that first set (I’m very scared of earthquakes). They didn’t pause or replay anything 
The rest felt decent, and I’m certain I got the long-form listening questions right. Though, did the conversational reply section (choose the best answer of 3) feel a little rushed to anyone? This was my first time on N1 so I don’t know what’s normal, but it felt very quick.
Ultimately, I guess we just gotta wait for results now! Here’s to relaxing a bit from the rigorous study until then!
Just took the N1 yesterday, too! I made a couple of stupid mistakes (totally forgot the reading of 貧富) but the reading and listening weren’t as bad as I thought.
お疲れ様！It’s finally over!
Isn’t that something you can complain about? I thought if you brought it up at the end of the test, they had to replay it for you. I don’t know what complaints after the test has finished can do, but it’s a possibility.
Normally, yes, but our proctors were very aware of the earthquake and made no move to do anything about it, despite most of the room looking like they were ready to dive under desks if it continued to get worse (it didn’t, but you never know with earthquakes). One of the other N1 rooms apparently had a CD issue, and had to argue with their proctors for 15 minutes to get them to replay the answers to a question that only played 1 of 3 answer choices.
At least in my experience, the Japanese proctors tend to be overly strict about the timings and incredibly unreasonable about making adjustments.
Oh wow, I’m sorry to hear that. That sounds really messed up. I guess the proctors at my location are more reasonable? I heard someone requested a reply of a question that also skipped some answers and then didn’t have any problems. Perhaps filing a complaint will encourage them to be more reasonable in the future?
I may just be jaded from my ALT experience at this point, but I wouldn’t expect a formal complaint to do much of anything 
I’ve never seen people with the power to make decisions do anything I would consider “logical” or “reasonable” unless their hands were forced by someone even higher up than themselves.
I’m sorry to hear that. I hope you can have more positive outcomes and situations in the future.
I don’t know guys. If I look back and remember what I’ve done every single day and minutes to prepare for the day, I just couldn’t see myself doing it all over again for the next 6 months. I was so motivated back then, and I just lost all the motivation now.
Again, grammar study feels of very little use. I literally went through all the main textbooks to study and now run out of them. Vocab seems all about luck. Out of the thousands and thousands of words we knew or studied or read from tons of sources, nothing came out. It’s not about forgetting but totally had no idea as we never saw the vocabs before. Consumed tons of media, books, textbooks, still only could made a little sense out of Reading.
Sorry I sounded like finding excuses. I’m just feeling disappointed at myself now and letting down the people around who believed in me.
Well that’s one way to do it. We don’t change the plan once it’s in progress where I work either. Best you could get is a provisional appeal if you turned out to fail by the point value of that one question, otherwise it’s harmless error.
As soon as you give the proctors authority to make “reasonable” adjustments, it gets out of control with them being TOO helpful. Then you open yourself to complaints about some proctors being more accommodating than others, and it’s unfair to the rest, etc.
I feel sorry that you are disappointed. Please take a short break from JLPT-related Japanese stuff, for a while, and don’t be so hard on yourself. It is an achievement in itself to have so much determination and commitment to all the available resources like books and media. For someone like me with around N3 knowledge, that is something I can only wish and hope for right now.
As someone who is also way too hard on themselves, there are a couple pieces of advice I’d like to give you.
-I highly doubt any of the people you’ve “let down” feel the same way. Be them teachers, tutors, or mentors, I’d wager that they’re proud of the work you’ve done, regardless of the test result. Remember, the test result is not a direct marker of the actual tangible results of your study. Your Japanese has improved no matter what that test says.
-The N1 is not the end-all-be-all goal for learning Japanese. Try to look back at your actual goals. Why did you start learning Japanese? Probably not to pass a test (though that may be one of the goals along the way). Are you closer to reading native material, watching anime without subtitles, or conversing smoothly with natives? If so, then you’ve succeeded in your studies.
-Lastly, remember that your worth as a person is not related to your test scores, and that just because someone else passes and you don’t doesn’t mean you didn’t improve. Compare your current self to your past self, and try to realize just how far you’ve truly come. It’s very easy to lose sight of that when we’re focusing in on every little step of the journey, meanwhile we see the big leaps made by others from the outside.
It may take time, but try to go easier on yourself. It’s certainly easier said than done, but you’ll be better for it in the end.
Wow so sorry to hear this. 
is there anything expressly written about these circumstances somewhere?
I started and finished the kanzen master reading book in about 5 days! I had to before the test, mocks showed me my reading is way behind so I hopped on Amazon prime and bought it lol.
It’s thick but you can move through pretty fast 
did you find you were able to retain a lot of the information and principles at that pace? It’s a pretty dense book, and I was only doing a few pages at a time (but also the JLPT yesterday hit me like a brick in terms of long-term concentration, and when I finally made it to the reading section I was ready for a nap…)
Wow, you went for N1? How did you prepare for that after Kumon Nihongo? Had you already passed N2?