Is it too early to create a thread for JLPT July 2023? 
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Why not? Time flies, so I don’t think it is.
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OK, done 
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With regards to assessing reading speed, what to do about unknown words? I can mouse over and get the word with my browser plugin but thats not my real reading speed.
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Just try to get the meaning from the context of the article/story, and don’t stop to wonder what that word means as that’ll slow you down considerably. Most times you’ll get the gist of it. Sometimes there are footnotes for words that are uncommon for your level in the JLPT test.
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It is Interesting how different people’s perceptions are. He said how easy some of the listening questions except for the last one, but for me the the other listening questions were tricky while the last one question (I guess he means the two long speaking sections) were easy enough for me to explain the exact reason I why I chose those answers.
But yes, the point needs to emphasised that the questions are not necessarily difficult but the time limit makes them far trickier than they would normally be.
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I just timed it and it took me about 3 minutes to read the passage and answer the questions. I took the N4 last weekend, and I only had about 2-3 minutes to spare on the reading section.
Honestly though, on the test, I spent a substantial amount of time trying to figure out certain words I didn’t know from context. If I hadn’t been playing a game of バカな外人 And The Case Of The Mystery Kanji, I would have had plenty of time. Point being: vocabulary is an important factor in effective reading speed, and the raw ability to parse text only goes so far.
Edit: I didn’t know about that site, so thanks for the link 
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Took the test and crying at listening. If I pass N3 I am def restudying it all because I didn’t feel confident
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Completely agree with this video. I quite regularly do N1 practice tests whenever new ones become available just to test the vocab, and particularly this last year I noticed a lot of words in N1 that were in books I was reading.
Kinda embarrassing but the book that had the most N1 vocab that I have read recently was the Japanese version of Star Wars - The Phantom Menace. (Highly recommend by the way) 
One thing that never ceases to amaze me in Japan though is the amount of Japanese people that say they don’t think N1 vocab is useful, but then in the next breath say they don’t ever read books.
Summary - Read.
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My test site was a bit overwhelming. I was in Shibuya for the N3 and there was about 300 people all crammed into the meeting hall. It was wild notice how much certain people did or did not understand of the proctors’ Japanese.
They would have to constantly ask people to put away their things and to not have their ID’s out or things like that. After each section people were practically running out of the door and the proctors had to yell at them to wait for him to dismiss them. Kinda wild.
As far as the actual test Each part felt adequately challeneging. But I really have no idea how it came out in the end. I finished with plenty of time to spare for both tests but I tend to rush tests, so who knows.
😏
Should not be a surprise to anyone who has seen my typos on this forum lol
I had been listening to 3x podcasts for the last week before the test just to adjust my ears to the speed of the Japanese. My Protip for listening comprehension. And I really did not have problems understand what they said.
Ultimately it was a vocabulary problem for me. Even still just so many words have not sunk into my subconscious yet. Back to to Studying Next it the N1 for me I think.
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Which podcasts have you been listening to? If you don’t mind me asking.
i have an interesting anecdote like this:
as i have written 3 weeks ago i finished brute forcing a n3 vocab deck - not a single word i have crammed was asked during the test that i remember. on the other hand the word 親戚 was the definite keypoint in a question - it is cassified as n2. i learned it from よふかしのうた an anime i watched months ago.
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I don’t think its the case that people feel the N1 words and kanji are obscure, it just feels like the emphasis is too heavily focused on literary study and ability as opposed to verbal communication. It’s quite telling that everyone’s advice for passing N1 is to read, as opposed to speaking. N2 I would say is all mostly commonly spoken words in daily life.
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I mean, that’s the whole point of getting to native level (to be able to understand literary works). If it was just to be able to speak and understand everyday Japanese, then N3/N2 would be enough.
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This feels more like a problem of those people misunderstanding what the JLPT is rather than a problem of the JLPT itself. It seems silly to think that N-levels correlates with speaking ability in the first place when it explicitly doesn’t cover it to begin with.
For people who are interested in a MC test which tests communication, the BJT may be something worth checking out.
Sample questions:
https://www.kanken.or.jp/bjt/about/level_sample.html
edit: It isn’t as widely available as the JLPT but since it’s a computer based test, you can book a time that is suitable for you and get the results on the same day. May be something to do while on a trip to Japan.
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This is always my go too, but there is always HNK Radio (RSS)
And one I got from George Trombley Cozy (RSS)
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Nice! Thanks so much. I’ll check them out.
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For me it depends on a couple of things.
First: is it entirely unknown, or is kinda ringing a bell? If I feel like it’s familiar/I recognize it, I may take a brief moment to wrack my brain. Not ages and ages, at least not if it’s for something timed like for the JLPT, but I can pause for a moment to think. If I can’t remember relatively quickly, I continue on. Sometimes checking the rest of the sentence can also give you the 
moment if it’s something you studied but just forgot for a second.
Second: is it written in kanji or hiragana? If it’s in hiragana, welp, 仕方がない, just gotta keep reading and hope context helps me out. If it’s in kanji, that can sometimes be your savior – because while I might not know the word, I might know some or all of the individual kanji, and at least be able to suss out or guess at the meaning.
(If I look at, I dunno, 自信, while I might not get specifically ‘confidence’ I could maybe get the sense that it involves believing in yourself.)
So there’s a lot of mental math that goes into it for me, so to speak, but in the end if you really can’t figure it out then you just have to keep moving and take your best guess. The most recent N4 had a reading where I didn’t know the word that the reading was discussing. Couldn’t figure it out. Just had to keep rolling and try for context guesses in the answers.
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I think this is one of the worst parts of the test. I’m really unsure about my own Japanese, so if a proctor gives instructions and I see somebody else not following those instructions my first thought is: “Oh, I misunderstood. Apparently I have to do this and not this.”
I imagine everyone is nervous as well. So now you have a room full of 20-100 nervous people overthinking whatever the proctor says and just trying to copy the actions of their neighbors because they’re panicking and trying to do the right thing.
It’s kind of like a little psychology experiment if you think about it.
I also feel like the company doesn’t take into consideration restroom facilities for these tests. The women’s restroom at every JLPT I’ve ever went to has been packed and almost unusable because of so many people. A girl tried to run out of the room at my N2 as well just so she could try to beat the line to the toilet.
The whole thing is kind of a mess.
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sorry another question.
listening is by far my weakest skill.
My current approach to improving it is just ‘listening to a lot of Nihongo con Teppi’ - trying to do an hour or so a day.
Podcasts work best for me as I can listen whilst doing other family related things.
I suspect it’s just a case of putting the hours in, but is there another approach? I wonder if I should listen to a podcast that has transcripts, and maybe combine it.
Also, might be nice to listen to a different voice for a bit, any recommendations for beginner level content