JLPT July 2023

me too!

2 Likes

With the exam being on a Sunday, what will you spend Saturday doing?
Last-minute cramming, or relax and try to go into the exam fresh? :thinking:

5 Likes

Last minute cramming for me. :sweat_smile:

2 Likes

School :sob:

Last minute cramming or maybe I can take a break and watch something in Japanese to convince myself I’m not avoiding studying fully

2 Likes

I’m gonna be relaxing, maybe read some manga or a light novel (in Japanese) but I think I’ve done really all I can at this point. If I don’t pass this time around there’s always December and I can get/use more study materials between now and then.

3 Likes

LOL I got a cheap Pulp ticket so going to see Pulp instead now, what could possibly go wrong?

My plans tomorrow are to hopefully finish the light novel (in Japanese) I am reading right now and to go to bed as early as I can so that on Sunday I am in a good shape.

3 Likes

Everyone get a good night’s sleep before the exam :wink:

4 Likes

And good luck! :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: You can do it! :partying_face:

It’s just filling in some blobs on a few pages, right? :cold_sweat:

7 Likes

The merits of the JLPT have always been debatable, but I don’t think there is any excuse or debate necessary for the low-quality and echoey listening portion, and the disorganised behaviour of the exam proctors.

Felt like I was in the 1980s. A frustrating experience.

5 Likes

the cd player literally stopped in the middle of the listening exam, we got to listen to the question before after they fixed it but sadly it was a super easy one, wish it broke after the tricky ones :sob:

1 Like

So stressful how they shout at everyone constantly from the moment of entering the exam room.
Even after opening the exam paper, still shouting :cold_sweat:
Given the amount of money we pay for this experience …

1 Like

RIP in N5 listening part :expressionless: I knew it will be the hardest for me but damn. I have a lot of catching up to do

3 Likes

As for the exam itself it was carried out in a professional manner. Audio quality could have been better though .

2 Likes

I thought that everything was organised quite professionally this year and the audio quality was good too.
Just one odd thing, the London venue was hosting two events simultaneously, the JLPT and the Festival of Marxism. This didn’t cause any issues but gave a very surreal air to the usually sombre pre-exam wait.

6 Likes

I was worried at first that the audio would be too low because my seat was in the very back of the room. Well, there were speakers in the ceiling and it was LOUD :sweat_smile: Thankfully they turned it down after the sound check. So I don’t have an excuse for failing the listening part. My biggest weakness tbh. Now the wait begins…

3 Likes

Part of exam I love most is when you have to choose the most suitable answer for some input on listening. It’s 3 choices and mostly 2 of them are not just out of clue, but rather joke or hard irony, like
部長:この報告を来週まで提出してください。
答え1:来週ですね。分かりました。
答え2:しなくてもいいってこと?
答え3:部長、頑張ってくださいね!

So most of the audience just can’t help but laugh.
I wonder if they made it intentionally to cheer up us a bit?

6 Likes

Ironically I think I blew N1 on the grammar portion but at the same time I feel like I possibly chose the closest answer to the correct one so maybe I got a few extra points. They seem to be testing the nuance of the sentence more than just choosing the obvious grammar point for a sentence. I think no matter how much Bunpro or textbook study you do, the style of grammar questions has changed a lot so just memorising grammar points and their function isn’t going to cut it anymore for at least 50% of the questions. Textbooks and apps just aren’t up to standard anymore.

The building the sentence questions are also always far more than difficult than any textbook sample questions I have ever tried including ones in Shin Kanzen Master.

Also this might be my imagination but I also feel that as more people with Chinese backgrounds are taking the test, there is a bit of difficulty creep coming into the kanji section to combat how easy that section probably was for them. I remember being thrown out in December with 如実 and this year also had some fairly tricky readings.

In that sense, while the reading section is notoriously the most challenging portion, answering the question just relies on your comprehension and speed. On the other hand, with language section you really either know the answer or your don’t know the answer. So I actually think that section is the most difficult.

I’m sure people will scoff but I genuinely feel the test is getting more difficult each year. Not sure I’ll take to again as it just feels like it is moving even further away from being a test of language than it already was.

4 Likes

There’s a belief that an actual JLPT exam tends to be slightly easier than mocks for preparations.

As for N2, not in the slightest. The Vocabulary/Grammar section had kinda same level of difficulty + some tricky kanji questions as @Beghaus said. Looks like those kanji are not even in JLPT N2 lists, so all these lists could be called outdated now I guess.
Nevertheless, I think I’ve passed this section, 文プロや鰐蟹のお陰で. As for N2, there weren’t any grammar questions testing nuances, all answers except one were obviously inappropriate, IIRC. So studying Bunpro is definitely worth it!
And the most important advice I was given, don’t waste too much time trying to find a correct answer for difficult questions, just leave them unanswered and then fill some random blobs for them. Save some time for reading section. The last reading question understanding some kind of leaflet always slightly easier than the previous two with long texts, so answer it first.

The listening section completely threw me off. All mocks were much more easier with funny answers for 問題3 included as @username2 said. But the actual exam didn’t have those (or my comprehension totally sucks). Even when I believe I understood the first sentence and all possible replies, there were more than one appropriate to me. So probably N2 listening section tests for nuances too from now on, or/and my listening ability sucks.
And it’s because I only did Bunpro and Wanikani preparing the exam, and no immersion at all because I had no time for watching anime. Looks like I should start watching one episode per day :sweat_smile:
Also the audio speech speed was quite fast, almost natural I’d say.

So probably I’ve failed this time unless I randomly guessed enough correct answers in the listening section.

4 Likes