The point is not to bash the Bunpro team, everybody appreciates the fact there’s mock tests. But it’s important to give feedback based on the actual tests as well so people are informed, and also so that the difficulty can be adjusted if possible/necessary.
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Is there information on how the tests were constructed? I recall that, when I wrote the N3 (was not using Bunpro at the time), I was “blowing through” my Try! series mock question sets, and, even though I did some that were more difficult on the level of points in Shin Kanzen Master (and there were some other mock tests I had purchased from Kinokuniya but I have long forgotten the names of them), the actual JLPT was surprisingly more difficult than my mock tests.
I almost feel as though one needs to go up an additional “half level” or some such from mock tests (at least when it comes to traditional books) to reach an equivalent JLPT level. Better to struggle on a mock test and be pleasantly surprised about the ease of the actual test, than the opposite.
Perhaps if the tests here (of which I have not looked at too deeply, yet) are designed to be equivalent in difficulty to more traditional book resources, therein might be an issue (as in, it’s systemic across various study resources).
I think it’s great that there are mock tests here, though. Hope everyone passed!
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yeah exactly- I was hoping to give feedback for more accurate future mock tests 
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I mean, I welcome any super-hard-way-more-than-needed mock tests. So as the real test comes, it will be a breeze. xD.
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If it makes you feel better, when I took N2 in 2017 I hadn’t done any practice tests so I didn’t have enough time for most of the reading section and I still passed.
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Hi all! Just realised I posted in the JLPT Dec 2025 thread where it probably belongs here.
I can confirm the Bunpro tests are also definitely easier than the real deal, and the main culprit (in my opinion) is how easily identifiable the correct answers are in the practice test. The example I gave was:
In the Bunpro practice tests, it will have something like:
“Where does this kanji fit best?”
- completely wrong
- correct
- completely wrong
- completely wrong
So it ends up being a vocab spot check. In the test today a question would be closer to:
“Where does this kanji fit best?”
- kinda wrong
- correct
- almost correct but not quite
- a simile but different nuance
This is also true for the listening and grammar sections.
I realise that’s a lot of extra work for putting tests together but that’s what I found to be the biggest difference between the Bunpro ones and the real thing!
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I feel like I might be triggering a lot of Bunpro users by using the world “nuance” lol.
Also definitely not dunking on the Bunpro JLPT tests! Thank you guys so much (@bunpro team) for putting them together!! Super helpful practice tool and you guys all really go above and beyong for helping out the Japanese language learning community.
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I just want to say that there was much discussion overheard in the exam waiting areas today about how much people love the Bunpro JLPT mock tests!
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Agree on this as well. Better to be more prepared! It can feel disappointing when you struggle or bomb a mock test but that’s not as hard as bombing a real one 
What a fantastic feature btw, this is truly something for the people 
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Appreciate all the feedback! It’s nice to have some data to go off of now that users have used the practice tests and taken a real test and giving us reports. Definitely still working to fine tune them more to at least better match the trickiness of the actual JLPT tests.
I know from my own experience with the JLPT they seem to like to do a level 99 difficulty test every few years and from what people have been saying online, seems like it was that kind of year this year.
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Just noticed that the level showing up on forums may not reflect the user’s highest level passed.
I’ve passed the N2 practice test (last month) but my forum profile says N3.
The tests are amazing by the way, excellent work. Looking forward to more in the future.
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I didn’t even know it was supposed to show anything yet, I passed an N1 one back when they first released them and mine doesn’t have anything.
Similar situation here. Maybe this actually reflects grammar/vocab deck completion?
Same here, I don’t think it’s supposed to fit yet ? But it would be nice if it did
Doesn’t seem like it; I’m finished with the N4 grammar and vocab decks, but mine says N5 (the only JLPT practice test I’ve taken)
Oh yeah, I’ve been meaning to give some feedback on the Bunpro mock tests as well.
When everybody was talking about the Bunpro mock tests right after the actual JLPT exams, I saw a lot of people say that Bunpro’s tests were easier than the real thing. I wanted to mention that I did not feel that way about the N4 mock tests. In my experience, the N4 mock tests were spot-on in terms of difficulty, except for one particular part where the mock test was more difficult, which I will detail below.
I did all five Bunpro N4 mock tests in the two weeks before the JLPT exam, so they were still fairly fresh in my memory when I was taking the real thing. My experience was that the mock exams were entirely comparable in terms of the level of reading exercises, kanji usage, clarity and speed of spoken dialogue and so on. In fact, I’d go so far as to actually call them perfect mock tests. The only noticeable thing that made the mock tests ever so slightly easier is that they seem to contain the exact vocabulary and word combinations that are taught in the Bunpro N4 Vocab Deck, such as teaching アイロンを掛ける and such (not sure if it was this exact combination that’s on the mock test, might be a different one). Because I study at Bunpro University, I was familiar with those word combinations and easily recalled them during the mock tests, but the actual exam contained some vocab that I’m fairly sure I hadn’t seen before yet. I’d say that’s unavoidable.
The one part where I feel the Bunpro N4 mock tests were more difficult than the real thing is the listening exercise about time. If I recall correctly, all the mock tests had one listening thing in which a lot of times are mentioned, and the real exam contained exactly one of those exercises. (So thank you very much for the good prep, Bunpro!) In all the mock tests, I was unable to follow along because of no other reason than the speed of the dialogue. I did not put any extra practice into this before going into the real exam, but contrary to the mock tests I was able to completely understand the dialogue in the real exam and I’m convinced this is because the speed of the dialogue was slower.
I can’t speak for others, but I don’t particularly mind if mock tests are a bit more difficult than the real thing. As long as it’s not too much, of course.
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Oh I have mock test feedback too! I’ve done all of the N5s and N4s. They are awesome. I felt so much more prepared going into JLPT this year.
First of all I want to echo @BreadmanNin – I thought N4 was exactly spot-on, at least for this most recent JLPT (Dec 2025). A big +1 to everything in your post!
I do have two other odd things I wanted to point out, one of which might just be my own ignorance.
1- Every N4 listening test I did on other websites had 8 questions in Mondai 4. On the Bunpro tests, there are only 6. This might just be me not understanding that the number of JLPT questions isn’t a set number?
2- A couple tests had vocab questions that were essentially repeated within the same test, where items in Mondai 1 and Mondai 2 dealt with the same exact word. N5 #5 had one, and N4 test #5 had two of these repeats. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, so I’ll keep it vague, but please DM if you want the specifics.
And overall just a huge thanks for all this work; this is an amazing resource! I’m actually looking forward to taking the N3 mock tests later this year!
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Thank you for the feedback!
@burrowingowl For the second point, I think I’ve found three repeated vocab items you mentioned. I’ll send you a DM to confirm 
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I think you are exactly right, and this is mainly what we are aiming on at the moment. Improving the difficulty of N3/2/1. N4 and N5 already feel quite good.
Since releasing the tests, we have already built a library of several hundred questions for all levels of all previous tests so that we can make the next set absolutely perfect 
.
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I have a request for this JLPT Practice tests. I took a test a while back and now that I have studied all the N1 grammar, I wanted to go back and look at the test I took and examine my mistakes. When I click on “Details”, I have the option to Retake or Open. I don’t really want to retake the whole test so I chose “Open”. But when I open the test, the answers are already displayed. I think it would be cool if the answers were hidden (or we had the option to hide them) so that we could retry and review our mistakes without having to take the whole test again.
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