Well done all of you, best of luck with the results.
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I’ve said it before, but I’m still not gonna sit any JLPTs without actually hauling myself to the audiologist to get physical paper proof that says “yeah this guy’s hearing is busted”, so I can get some kind of allowance for it. I’d like to shoot for N3 when I do end up getting to apply though.
Best of luck to all with the results! Sounds like it was a particularly rough round this time…
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I always find funny the “relaxing music” to take a break at mid listening.
I can tell you it doesn’t have any relaxing effect on me at all.
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Very similar to experience to you, Devenu, N2, pretty sure I’m very close around 50%. Hope I’ll be lucky and on the right side of that 
I underestimated the necessary reading speed, listening skill, and vocabulary size (mine is ~9000, I’d estimate ~14000 would be necessary for the 50-100 words I didn’t know). I was surprised, because I’ve read somewhere that ~6000 words are enough for N2. No way.
I ran out of time with around 17 long texts/questions still to read, so I had to random guess for those. You have no time to double-check answers or regularly think about the meaning of a word for 2-3 seconds. I had a false sense of security after the first few questions which were quite easy and fast to answer.
But my main goal was just to check my progress towards N2 and have something to learn for.
All in all it was an interesting and worthwhile experience 
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Advice from someone who’s a bit further in the JP learning process: Never think that you’ll “never use this word anyway” just because it didn’t pop up in your conversations or reading/listening material you consume until now.
In english, “to sprout” is actually a common word every child knows. It’s true, that it’s not among the super-common words you use every day (to buy, to eat, to drink, to walk, to go etc etc), but think a bit: I’m 10000% sure that you’ve had conversations where you were talking about sprouting plants. Maybe at the time you were a kid an planted your first plant, or when discussing when to harvest grandma’s tomatos etc etc.
The thing is: A lot of JP learners (and yes, I do include myself in this criticism too) make the mistake that they disregard a lot of words as “useless”, simply because their vocabulary is actually to limited to even start a conversation about this topic. If you don’t even know what “to sprout” means in japanese, how you ever gonna proactively start a conversation about this topic? So the word seems “useless” and “superfluous” , but in reality it isn’t.
English isn’t my native language. I don’t even live in an environment where english is spoken a lot. But did I use the word “to sprout” in my life? Of course I did. So why wouldn’t I use 発芽, too?
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The 模擬試験 I wrote for N2 was easier than the real test. I think I did alright on the grammar section, but reading seemed particularly difficult. Before the listening test started, the proctors realized that the tiny boombox they were using wasn’t going to cut it volume-wise, and it took no more than seven people to figure out how to set up the microphone in front of the speaker. The hot, humid weather made listening a test of endurance. If I do end up passing, it will be by the smallest of margins.
Having written the N4, N3, and N2, I’m getting fed-up a bit with the JLPT as a test. The grammar questions seem so few, the reading passages’ topics and styles are so stale compared to the native material I’m able to read in magazines or online, and the lack of any output testing (interview, answering written questions, etc) means the test is testing only half of my Japanese ability.
I think the JLPT is very useful as a goal for studying, but I really wish there was another Japanese test out there - in particular, one that included an interview. If I passed that sort of test, I’d feel more accomplished in my Japanese skills.
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It’s not necessary to pass JLPT to be good at Japanese. It’s just a test and fairly esoteric one too in the sense that scoring system can be really manipulated to your advantage. These days I just take it and forget about it. N2 and N1 are really just tiny steps to overall fluency and literacy anyway.
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I tried N1 for the first time. As I expected, the main issue for me is just time management because I like to be careful and think a lot about every question.
I did the vocab questions, skipped the grammar questions to start the reading section, then ran out of time with 5 reading questions remaining and had to fill in random answers for those 5 reading questions and all of the grammar questions except for 6. Everyone has said that the grammar questions were easier than usual so I regret skipping them, I should have just quickly done them for extra points.
Checking the answers after the test, I got about 3 vocab questions wrong, and out of the reading questions that I actually did, I only got 2 wrong, so even though I ran out of time, maybe it will be okay as long as my listening score is decent.
But, for the listening section, I have no idea how it will go. There was a girl sitting near me who kept tapping her desk and clicking her pen during the test and it was extremely distracting for me. I got 58/60 for Listening in N2 but this time I might even fail the listening section, I can’t remember it at all.
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This was a thematic issue I was hearing about for this year’s test, about noise in the testing room. Because of this I’m going to start doing my listening practice while watching YouTube street fights so that I can get accustomed to tuning out random dumb stuff
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Passed N3 really easily in last december, tried N2 this time.
Vocabulary part was super easy for me except for the last question with those freaking onomatopoeias 
Grammar seemed not that difficult except for personally I just can’t get my mind around the questions where you have to guess what’s in the place of the star! That’s impossible for me even in the Kanzen books haha
Reading section was really difficult and tricky, I was overconfident because usually I don’t struggle when reading newspapers or regular articles on Wikipedia, but those texts were pretty boring for me and I always came up with 2 or 3 good answers…
Listening part slayed me lmao, it is supposed to be close to normal speed but it felt like way too fast. I was clearly not prepared for this section and didn’t practice at all.
Also I was in the right edge of the room very very close to the right speaker and it really disturbed me 
When leaving I ended up a bit frustrated because I realised how this exam is more about being good at taking it rather than being good at japanese. I’m fully self taught for 4 years now and never been to Japan but I’m looking forward to finally go live and work there so that I can easily and naturally be accustomed to the thick difficulty of this N2 and later N1 of course.
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You’re gonna do the same as you do with any other word you don’t know or can’t recall: You’re gonna explain the concept or look it up.
I have had experiences too where words I thought wouldn’t be useful turned up in conversations later. But in general, if it’s not for a test, it’s fine to think of a word as “useless” and to not learn it properly or at all at that moment. We all have finite time and have to focus. And you’ll be fine - if it turns out you hear, read or want to use the word a few times after all, you’ll eventually learn it anyway.
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Hey! I took N4 the same day here in Valencia (Spain), I would say the grammar/vocabulary part was super easy (I am level 60 in WaniKani though ), but the listening part… was quite challenging for me… I hope I passed 
The grammar part I hated the most is the one with the 
, can’t get used to that 
although the rest of the grammar was quite straightforward and I felt like bunpro really help me there with the N4 Grammar Decks 
The only thing remarkable on my classroom is that in the same classroom as my classmate and I, the son of our Japanese teacher (who is a half Japanese, half Spanish 13 year old) was also taking the exam. When I asked him how was the test he told me: かんたんです！
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Hola @kutyel, welcome in the forum and well done for the exam!
I’m taking the N4 this december, do you have any advice? do you regret something on how you prepared this exam?
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Thanks @qazrt! Yeah definitely, I would come up with some words I did not know like ねっしん and 営業, so I guess I should have done as well the N4 Vocabulary Deck from Bunpro, and definitely should have listened to more listening practice videos on YouTube, like this one for example. All the best in your December exam! 
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I will have a look, thank you!
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My dear 仲間達 I passed my JLPT N4!!! 
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You can’t repeat anything in the listening section?!
But what if my brain hasn’t turned on yet…
Yeahhhh. It is the last part of the test, so hopefully you should be warmed up by then. Also, there is a little warming up before each section of the listening test, so it helps as well. But yep, once it starts, it doesn’t stop. Worst case you can just mark a random answer and try to catch up
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On the listening section, do you get a chance to read the answers before the audio plays. Worried that if my reading speed is too slow, I won’t have finished reading the options ahead of the audio playing.
For some you can, for others you can’t. There’s also a few sections where there’s nothing written and the answer is part of the audio as well.
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