Have you ever felt *prepared enough* for the JLPT?

Japanese
#1

With the JLPT being less than a month away…I’ve found myself wondering this yet again.

Personally, I think I always feel underprepared and like I’ve passed on a whim, but this time I feel a little more confident (2nd time taking N3, just barely missed the passing line last December). Since the last time I took the test I’ve started using Bunpro which has definitely helped grammar - previously my worse area. But I still feel likes there’s mountains of grammar points and vocabulary I haven’t studied enough that I should know in order to pass N3.

So how is everyone feeling? Or how did you feel before when you passed or failed the test? Is confidence a good indicator for your test result? :no_mouth:

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#2

Performance in mock tests is the best indicator, especially if done against time pressure. I felt if Im scoring well in those, Ill do around the same on the day, more or less; depending on nerves, paper difficulty.

There was a sketchy site that had all past papers on it before being taken offline. I did a load of those and that gave me confidence.

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#3

I just missed the pass mark for N3 last summer, then I was an idiot and missed the deadline for December. Ever since then I’ve just been improving all aspects of my Japanese and now feel quite comfortable I’ll pass. My mock tests have been going well.

I’m in the ‘confident-with-N3-but-nowhere-near-ready-for-N2’ purgatory.

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#4

Dang sorry you missed the deadline. They closed it early this year too.

I have the same feeling as you. I was debating whether to take N3 again or just wait and try for N2 later, but I really want to be able to say I passed… :worried:

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#5

I don’t remember how I felt about N4, but here’s what I felt for N3 and N2

prior to the tests, I felt there’s no way I’d pass. After the test though, psychologically I was like yeah thats not a pass, but I had some weird gut feeling that I passed. And in both cases I did. Not super high for either, but like 115ish and 95ish respectively if I recall correctly. I wouldn’t say what I felt is confidence, but some sort of weird gut intuition. I don’t really go in for intuition so I hate to call it that, but I think that’s the best way I can describe it…

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#6

I’ve taken it twice. The first time I took N2 and I was relatively confident. I ended up passing pretty easily, and actually did better than I expected.

I studied for another year and took N1, and actually was pretty confident I would do well, but the actual test was so much harder than I expected. My vocabulary was nowhere near where it needed to be, so even though I knew all the kanji, that was one of my weakest areas because I just didn’t know the vocab it was being used in (this is usually my strongest). I did fine on grammar that time, but I did really poorly on kanji/vocab. I also ran out of time and didn’t finish the reading section. I’m studying to try to take it again after years, and I’m starting to feel more confident about my vocabulary level now, but I’m still not sure I’d pass it.

So yeah, it’s been a mixed bag for me. I actually had a friend who passed N1 on the first try without really studying and that still boggles my mind. He mostly took it for fun just to see how he’d do and I had studied for like 3 years just to take those tests and still didn’t pass. :joy:

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#7

I find this topic really interesting. In my experience it seems to come down to what someone is expecting more than anything.

I took the N2 and N1 but nothing below (both times I was comfortably over the passing level). Both times I had friends also taking the same level who seemed much more confident than me before and/or after the test but ended up failing or barely passing. I think the difference was our mentalities. For them, just scraping a pass was the goal, so “confident” meant “I think I am close to passing”. For me, I knew I should easily pass so anything I didn’t know or wasn’t sure about felt like a blow, so “confidence” would have meant having a high score and also being certain my answers were right.

If anything I think I would’ve been less nervous about the test if I thought I was going to fail it. Then a pass is just a nice surprise :grin:

So to answer this:

Is confidence a good indicator for your test result?

I think it is going to come down to the individual. I can only conclude that confidence is not directly related to actual ability, just to perceived ability or satisfaction with one’s level.

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#8

I felt the same way too. :sweat_smile:

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#9

I think this is an interesting question!
I’m not taking the JLPT this time but I can tell you a bit about my previous experiences.
I have taken the N4, N3 and N2 - passed them all first try thankfully.
N4, I was riddled with anxiety. I feel like I have never been as stressed as I was back then (I was 17 mind you…). I passed, don’t remember my mark but I was thankful. I had studied every day, hard core, for over half a year (I had been studying at high school but took on extra study to do this test of course).
N3, I had been living in Japan for over a year. I had also studied Japanese at a university level. I was studying consistently but definitely wasn’t as stressed this time around. In fact, I wasn’t nervous at all going into it. I got a decent mark.
N2. Still living in Japan. I used textbooks to study, as well as Bunpro. I wasn’t stressed about the test but knew that I wasn’t as prepared as I was for N3 the previous year. That being said, I wasn’t nervous. I don’t seem to get nervous about tests anymore (this may be thanks to my extremely stressed 17 year old self). I passed the test but it wasn’t a great score.

I have never been confident going into a test, but I guess, once I get there, it all feels a bit inevitable? What’s going to happen, will happen. I kind of feel detached from myself - sounds a bit strange and it may be more of a me thing.

I do practice tests beforehand, to see where I’m at. I mainly focus on reading in the things coming up to the test though. It’s my weakest section. I struggled with it the most in N2 since they merge the reading and grammar sections together.

But these days, I don’t feel much about the tests I think. I think it felt high stakes the first time because it WAS my first time. The other times, I was trying because I wanted to, rather than because I was encouraged to (extra pressure during the first one for sure, from my teachers etc).

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#10

Wow N1 on the first try! Do you know how long had your friend been studying?

#11

That’s very true - “confident” varies individual to individual. Most of my friends who have also taken the JLPT rarely say they are confident before or after taking the test.

I can only conclude that confidence is not directly related to actual ability, just to perceived ability or satisfaction with one’s level.

I’ll definitely keep this in mind while getting ready for the test!

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#12

He didn’t! That’s the most annoying part. :joy: But he HAD gone to college at a Japanese university and actually took the classes in Japanese, so he had exposure to higher level vocabulary and more obscure grammar and what not from that, so I’m not super surprised. He had the best Japanese of any foreigner I met while I was there.

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#13

I did the appropriate test prep, and was able to pass several mock exams before N2, so I did go in feeling prepared.

Test anxiety is very, very real for me, so the actual exam felt so much more difficult. I had a 5 hour drive home in essentially silence because I was convinced I’d bombed the exam… Honestly, the entire experience was absolutely miserable for me, to the point where I was physically sick to my stomach, but I really, really wanted something to show for my studying.

However, I ended up passing fairly handily.

I get the mental aspect of it for sure, but if you’ve prepared and taken honest assessments of your skill, I don’t think there is much to worry about.

Or you could be like the person I talked to after the exam who had never done a mock exam and decided to wing it and take N2. Needless to say he did not have a good time :sweat_smile:

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#14

Seconding the mock tests recommendations; do as many of them as you can manage. if you can pass those comfortably, then there’s no reason to not feel confident on the real thing. For a lot of people (me included), test anxiety and distracting conditions during the real test will make you perform worse, which is why you want to be able to comfortably pass the mock tests.

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#15

I’ve tried to wing the JLPT so I never felt prepared enough. I mentioned it in another thread but because the pass score is 50%, it’s easy to do a few questions and feel overconfident. Also because it’s multiple choice it’s easy to feel you can get lucky or misattribute accidental correct answers to actual capability.

I think there comes a point where you move from “I’m trying to decipher this passage/grammar/vocab/kanji point and use intuition to guess the right answer” to “This question and answer makes 90% sense to me, all the other answers seem wrong” and your confidence improves. For a long time I felt like I was in the first category with reading/grammar. If you try to do the JLPT one level below the one you’re studying for, you should get a sense of the latter.

Doing the Reading mode in Bunpro has helped me develop a sense of “Did I actually understand the passage?” vs “I thought I understood the passage, but actually didn’t.”

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#16

This will be my first JLPT, and I’m taking N4. I’m… cautiously optimistic, but I won’t be surprised if the test is much harder than I expect and I fail after all. I’m mostly just taking it to see if I can, so a failing score won’t be as hard a blow as it could be.

I was originally going to sign up for the N5, but after doing some mock tests and seeing the material for it, I realised that wouldn’t have been a challenge at all; I’m very confident I am N5 level. However, I knew I wasn’t N4 level yet, so I’d have to do a LOT of studying from that moment until the test. So I bought some study materials, made a planning, and… surprisingly, so far, have mostly stuck to it. And I’m seeing results for sure. Will it be enough for the test? Only time will tell. There’s definitely plenty of grammar points I’m not as confident in as I’d like to be, and I still come across vocab that’s supposedly N4 which I’ve never seen in my life, but there’s just as many things I’m very confident about.

So I’m feeling like I’m preparing as much as I could within the time I had to study for the test - without burning myself out in the process, that is. Whatever the result, I’ll know I’ve given it my all :slight_smile:

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#17

I met people who had decide to go in blind as well and this is soooo not a test to do that with. Maybe at N5 you can do it and do okay since it’s relatively simple, but I think especially with the timed aspect of it that it’s important to have taken the test before just to get an understanding of what it’s like.

I feel like it’s very stressful when you’re there because you have things like if you don’t follow the rules you can get a yellow card and you can get kicked out if your phone rings and stuff like that and so it’s this very serious, quiet, high stress environment.

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#18

I took N3 and knew a pass was all but guaranteed. I passed with a high score, but had the similar experience to what others say that as there were some questions I didn’t know they really knocked my confidence as I thought the level was a bit beneath me.

I then did N2 in the next testing round with a mentality of “it will motivate me to study and I could scrape a pass”, but I knew it was very unlikely. This test felt subjectively better than N3 as I was actually happy to get things right and anticipating lots I didn’t know. Ended up failing by a few marks, surprisingly with a shocker of a score on reading which had felt like my strongest section. I had understood the texts pretty well, but I think I tripped up on not closely reading the answer options enough afterwards and answering incorrectly.

Going to take N2 again next month, and this time in the same position as N3 before, I will be pretty disappointed to not pass with a good mark. However - this brings back up the anxiety of how I will mess it up!

Ultimately, I only study JLPT as a way of measuring and directing my progress, so even if I completely bomb it the only negative thing is the money and time wasted on the test.

tldr: anxieties and likelihood of success rise in tandem

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#19

Oh yes, I’ve known several people who go in blind and are completely shocked with how difficult it is.

Test anxiety is real for me too - I always have a headache after the test. I brought snacks last time and that helped a bit. :rice_ball:

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#20

Good luck! Sounds like you’ve been preparing a lot, so I think you can pass :wink: