I felt the exact same. I did over 50 practice listening tests this year, including Bunpro’s, and consistently I would miss 4 or 5 questions in Mondai 1&2 while sailing easily through 3&4. But on the test yesterday it was the reverse for sure.
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Yeah to me the reading was a bit tough, but the questions and answers were understandable and the difference between them weren’t subtle. Not quite guessable with common sense, but like if you understood the thing it was asking about the answer was very clear. Great test making imo
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Wow, thats crazy. Why do some places limit it so much? I assume lack of staff/resources, but are there other reasons?
Interesting. I wonder why?
it is probably too disruptive considering the listening is only played once and the sound of someone getting up and leaving and opening and closing the door etc would really throw people off
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Same. We absolutely would not have been allowed back in.
I think even for people talented in language learning, N3 in 1 year is a very impressive achievement and you should be very proud.
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Took the N5 yesterday. Listening was the rough part because I got thrown off the beginning when I forgot they had to play the example question first I tried to play catch up and got lock in the 2nd section😆. When I started out studying Japanese about a year and half ago, I only focused on the Kanji (long story but I admit I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed) and really only got serious for studying other parts since around the earlier part of this year. N5 not having kanjis for certain words really felt like a space in between every letter. Sure, you can read it but it get really annoying and I’m trying to glue them together than reading (glad, I really know a lot of kanji).
Glad, I got a pretty good 1st try, did the practice exams, and everything. Is this perfect and indicates your Japanese, NO FOR OUTPUT (other languages tests like French and others make you write for some of the questions) but a good benchmark for reading, listening, and vocabulary. I’m glad mines was the normal and no problems really except for a delay at the beginning to make sure everything writes on their stuff and actually follows the rules.
If I get a good result, I’ll just skip to N3 to see where I am at next summer if my schedule clears up then if I pass N3 next summer, do N2 summer 2027 and on from there. Going to get back to pen and paper writing (been doing quite an amount of daily typing just was lazy for physically writing recently) then get really getting into speaking.
Sorry if this was long but this was my first experience in taking an official language test and I’ll be looking to learning another language (I’m currently thinking about doing Korean, Polish or German as my next one/learn along aside Japanese). Can’t believe how winded I was when taking the first pre test since I’ve been out of college for several years but glad I was did them to get the stamina and time.
Anyways, hope y’all did well and enjoyed your experience.
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I found them much more lenient in the United States. Someone in my test literally stood up and tried to go to the bathroom in the middle of the test; she was kindly guided back to her seat and told she could go during the break. I think in Japan, they would have booted her. She also talked herself during the test and came back from both breaks late. I’m not saying she should have been kicked out, I was just surprised she wasn’t.
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I agree! I felt exactly the same. During practice I felt like I really struggled with the first section of listening but then in the actual test it was a breeze…and then in the last section I really struggled. I felt like my brain just fizzled out during that section. I’m glad to know I wasn’t the only one who felt like they got tripped up T_T
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I would like if they start with the listening part first then the rest of exam. At least you get the hard part out and proctors and examiners are fresh and really focus on what they need to do.
Other than that, not bad.
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Disagree on that one, personally! Since there are no do-overs in listening, I’d rather warm up first with the other tests - I’d probably be nervous and just freeze up if it was the first thing. 
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I did exactly the same thing, so don’t worry, I think its not that uncommon. The thought process is - “I want to read Japanese, Japanese is kanji, so if I know kanji, I’ll be able to read. I’ll learn lots of kanji then I’ll be able to read.” It’s quite logical. Not correct, but logical.
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Same here haha, my kanji level (~1100) is way ahead of my general level (just getting started with N3 content). I feel like it does help quite a lot for reading, I’ve been able to get the main idea of texts that are way beyond my current abilities, but it also means I’m not comfortable with kanji-less texts since for a lot of them I know their meaning(s) but not their multiple pronunciations.
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lmao before i took vocab srsly i learned 1.2k kanji with kanji garden and i knew the onyomi and kunyomi it was so fustrating to see how dumb it was to tunnel one specific area, still working on balancing everything haha
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totally - it’s like 19/60 total but you could score a pass in all three sections and still fail over all if you don’t beat the whatever out of 180 (for N5 it’s 80, N4, it’s 90, etc)
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we were about 45 minutes late in Honolulu N4 - we lost 15 minutes with people not filling out their sheets right - (sending them back to fill in bubble numbers of their test id, etc) but the Listening part they could NOT get the equipment working. Eventually we had to pick up all our stuff and go next door - LOL
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That was me - surprisingly we DID have some sprinkles in the AM with sunny skies otherwise - LOL - but just being in Hawaii was a blast - always is
This year I got to the University over an hour early and sat down at some Japanese Gardens on campus - I expected to see others there but no one showed up - then I went to Moore Hall where the test were, and everyone is just speaking fluent Japanese and blowing me away and then I realized us chumps were on the 2nd floor (N4/N5) and went up there where we weren’t so sure.
as I said in my other post which you can search for my overall test experience was meh - I feel like I missed some easy points when I went back afterward and unless my guessing is above par I won’t have passed - I’ll take the win if I did but not jump ahead to N3 - I have too much behind me still to follow up on
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This was me. I did all 2000 or so kanji on Kanji Garden. Failed the N2 four times and then rushed through the Wanikani list of vocab in 6 months, did Bunpro N2 and finally beat the N2 this July. In hindsight the last 10-15 levels of Wanikani are pretty redundant for the N2 and common use.
That said without 7 years learning + Kanji Garden recognition going through the Wanikani list of vocab in 6 months would’ve been crazy. Bunpro is golden for giving vocab in context.
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N1 reading was pretty tricky, I felt like I understood what I was reading for each of the passages but the answers were tough to decide between. I was usually able to narrow it down to two answers but I wasn’t able to figure out the nuance enough to decide with confidence between the two. Listening went great though and I found the kanji / vocab / grammar to be pretty smooth as well so hopefully I finally passed (third time taking N1).
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