Possibly December. It’s a long gap since I did N3.
No formal study plan yet, but I have a plan to get myself through Bunpro N2 grammar by September, plus I’ll start using the SKM books too.
My main focus will be increasing my reading speed by reading books, plus trying to read websites, newspapers etc. I also need to improve my listening with podcasts and TV programmes etc.
My target is next December! I may sign up for the July one anyway just to practice but N2 seems far above N3 (which I just passed) so it will probably take some time for me to catch up.
I picked up the 日本語の森 N3 and N2 books last year in Japan, so I plan on studying these plus SKM plus listening exercises on YouTube.
In general, reading kicked my .$$ in the N3 and I need to get better at quickly getting the gist of things so it will be a lot of my focus going forward!
When I took the N2 a couple years ago, I went in having read almost only isekai light novels and the occasional romcom. Did no dedicated grammar study ever since reaching an N3’ish level and the majority of my listening practice came from isekai audiobooks. My only preparation for the N2 specifically was doing one practice test.
Having read 20 books (and almost no manga) I passed the N2 with a 147/180. Wind forward a year and another 20 isekai light novels and I passed the N1 with a 136/180.
You really don’t need to change up your immersion material just to pass the N2. I’d even go so far as to say the isekai light novels had the largest contribution to me passing both tests, simply because I enjoyed them so much that I binged volume after volume whenever I could find the time.
TL;DR: The material on the N2/N1 really isn’t as specific as a lot of people make it seem. Just read whatever you enjoy.
That’s actually great to know and definitely gives me a confidence boost, thanks for sharing!
Best case scenario, only taking it in July. But if July goes poorly… both 
I’m currently spending the majority of my time cramming as much listening immersion into the day as I can manage, since that was my N3 pitfall. And then I spend about an hour every evening on vocab. Other than those two, I read a few pages from a novel daily, work on kanji and grammar, and do pages from the Soumatome workbooks (though currently not as many as I should tbh…)
I think right now I can handle the content but not very quickly, so working on speeding up reading and general time management is a major goal of mine over the next few months 
This is a good point, I’d forgotten about audiobooks. When I tried to listen to them casually over a year ago they were too fast for me to follow, but I’d be willing to throw some audiobooks back into the rotation these days for extra time.
If you are looking for an easy audiobook to get into it, I can recommend 最弱テイマーはゴミ拾いの旅を始めました。. It’s not exactly thick in plot, but it’s nice in a cozy way and in terms of audiobook series it’s about as easy as it gets. I think 8 of the volumes have been narrated so far? Plenty of listening practice if it’s your cup of tea.
I’m hoping to take it in December. I’ve never taken an official JLPT exam so I’m kind of shooting high!
My current study routine is:
In July/August I’ll take both N3 and N2 mock exams on Migii to determine how close I am to passing N2 before I sign up. Then I’ll switch to a new study schedule that will likely have less new grammar lessons. Instead it’ll focus on reviewing what I’ve learned and doing more reading and listening of real content. I also want to try Xenosaga 1&2 (the DS video game) around that time as Science fiction is bound to have a lot of advanced grammar and kanji usage.
Meee, N2 in July!
On weekdays I go through Try! n2 very thoroughly (and then will do 新完全マスター文法 after it’s done next month) when I get some time at work, then at home I probably spend on average now abt 2-ish hours a day reading novels and another hour-ish watching various japanese tv shows every day. Also throw in 20 mins of anki (mostly mined from novels using my phone dictionary now) somewhere as well. Plus general exposure from living in Japan.
The textbook stuff I’m doing now is mostly just because it’s something I can fit around work which I can’t with reading or listening. I feel like I get way more benefit out of reading and listening at the moment (for many reasons, but mostly due to the much greater time I can put into them and the enjoyment I get out of them), but there’s still some use for textbooks.
Your whole post is full of such great advice and insight! I was so (pleasantly) surprised reading posts from people who passed N2/N1 with really high scores only to find that their main study materials were just native reading and listening materials that they genuinely enjoyed! It really helps put things in a different perspective than I have been approaching things with.
I love it when people share those things because so many times I have seen people (usually who didn’t take it) say that it has only “newspaper Japanese” and isn’t “real”. But then when I see the people who passed it just by reading manga, novels, and video games, and it reminds me that it’s not just newspapers that have literary Japanese. Fun things have them too!
Time to use all the Japanese only games I bought on accident!
This is true, but there is still a kernel of truth in the “read some nonfiction” advice. The novels etc will eventually cover all the same ground (both vocab and grammar), but it will take you longer in time spent reading because that kind of language is just rarer in those genres.
What the novels etc and general “read what you enjoy” absolutely gets you is the reading fluency and speed which you need. That takes time and if you’re not reading what you enjoy you’re not going to want to put in the time. So it’s absolutely what I recommend (not just for test passing purposes, but also because doing fun stuff with the language is to me the whole point of learning it in the first place).
But I do also think that if you’re doing any kind of test focused prep (i.e. you aren’t in the “I am not specifically studying for this test, I’m just going to walk into the exam room and see how I do” group) then including a little nonfiction reading in that prep is a good idea, to get used to the style.
Got N3 without any JLPT prep, just read, immersed and did Wanikani to level 18. Same plan N2 but aiming for higher WK level.
Linking this post because it has some N2 nuggets in it
FWIW, a news article about JLPT answers having been compromised, with a focus on the N2 exam from last year:
Parts of this make me laugh because it says “an unnatural concentration of identical results” followed by “two of its 140 students who took the test were informed their submissions were ungradable.” It’s a multiple choice test, shouldn’t 2/140 making the same choices be expected? There are only so many options to choose from haha
That being said, there are definitely a few world sites well-known for leaking test questions early 
Pitfall of using a paper test with a separate scantron is that it’s really easy to commandeer an unmarked booklet for photos. If they moved to computer tests, they could avoid that problem AND we’d get instant results… 
I’ve been trying to register for the N2 in Leiden, but it’s always a complete shitshow. After trying without success several times yesterday (and on the 15th, when they first opened but had to close due to technical issues), I read that they are full for registrations. Oh well. Guess it will be another December trip to Dusseldorf this year 
now to keep an eye to when those registrations open.
In the past few years they opened a few days before the summer test was held, just to give you a timeframe. And maybe we can have another pre-exam dinner together? (or post-exam if you prefer) 
I’ll keep an eye out around those dates, then. I must say our meet up was one of the most pleasant points of the trip, so I’ll be sure to let you know if I do indeed successfully register for December 
