You can get the official practice papers plus audio, answers etc. for all JLPT levels here, completely for free! 
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The JLPT N4 and N3 are arguably the most useless levels.
Having N5 will make it easier to get into a Japanese language school on a student visa. The N2 and N1 both give you points on certain visa applications. As far as I know N1 is required to study at a Japanese university. N4 and N3 do not seem to have any concrete benefits attached to them. For job applications, being able to converse in Japanese is way more important than any certificate.
I took all tests and used their scopes to guide my self-study. I also like to collect the certificates like PokƩmon gym badges 
So my recommendation is, take N5 now and N4 right after that or whenever youāre feeling ready. Unlike school, you can set your own schedule and there should be no need to stress about a hobby by setting arbitrary deadlines.
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Itās 15.03 which means registration just opened at Leiden university (and perhaps other places).
Iām really curious to see how high the spike is on their monitoring, because the site is visibly suffering 
No luck again 
guess thatās it for the summer
Secondly, many people report the website saying registrations are full. Registrations are not full yet. We are looking into why this is happening.
Same as last summer, the database didnāt survive the influx of applicants. They will probably have an update on when the registration reopens later today.
I tied to sign up at Leiden, but currently their page says the maximum number of registrations has been reached.
Iām a bit heartbroken.
15-03-2025: Due to the large number of issues, we are closing registrations for now. We will reopen them on 29 March at 13:00. We are deeply sorry for the inconvenience.
Good news is that we can still register.
Bad news is that Iāll be traveling and might miss this new registration window xD
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Oh, dang. Youāre right. I guess Iām one of the people who got the erroneous āfullā message.
Well, Iām somewhat relieved, I guess. Thanks for the heads-up!
I hope you can catch the registration during your trip!
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Iām heavily leaning into just skipping doing the N3 again and saving the Ā„7500.
As I was close to passing the N3 last time, maybe itās better to just keep making my way toward N2 and take that some time in the future
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Iām pretty sure I read you saying you were really close to passing N3 last time, so probably a good call to skip it in my book. Just keep grinding away at the studies and then shoot for N2 in December or next July 
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I think the huge gap in difficulty between N3 and N2 means Iād probably aim for next year but yes Iāll definitely keep grinding!
I can use the Ā„7500 (or Ā„15000) on something thatāll help me get to N2 
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Iāve tried the official N1 sample, and the results were kind of the opposite from what I expected.
Iāve been reading quite a bit lately, but still the reading section of the test felt very draining and time consuming. It seems you are expected to scan those long passages to find key information quickly, but scanning kanji is clearly beyond my ability.
On the other hand, the listening section felt very manageable, even though my listening is not that good. The dialogs are well articulated, and follow a predicable pattern.
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ow man, I had the same feeling while trying to register for the exam in Leidenā¦ This would have been my first application, starting āeasyā with N5. We have another shot at 29-03! There is a Reddit post about the location Leiden, it seems to be a s**tshow every yearā¦
Fingers crossed and hopefully we can get a spot in Leiden! After this year I will go to other locations like Germany or Belgium, seem to have much better facilities, websites etc.
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Yeah I passed J-Test A-C at an N2 level literally guessing on every reading question. I was not prepared for the time crunch, but it turned out alright. I still did better with random guessing than on the short form listening 
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The registrations for JLPT at Leiden University opened again today, but I am unable to get the website to work properly. I give up. Iām sad and frustrated, but thereās nothing I can do.
I was ready at the appointed time of 13:00, though the website already started showing problems five minutes in advance. They also placed a warning message that read āif the form gives an error message saying your email address has already been used, please use a different email addressā.
Registrations did not actually open at 13:00, but at around 13:06, the registration button finally appeared. The website was extremely slow to load, but it did pop up after a couple of minutes and a few refreshes. Uploading my photo took minutes as well. The form didnāt work well and contained many typos. It looked very embarrassing.
When sending in the application, the website went down again. After reloading and trying again, the form told me my email address had already been used. I then tried a different email address but the website went down again. At the next try, apparently my second email address was also already in use. I had one final email address that I havenāt used in years, but even that one didnāt get accepted. I give up.
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Sorry to hear it. Are there any alternative test sites you can try?
Or maybe even check just one final time, just in case? 
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Same story here @BreadmanNin 
I am really dissapointed, especially since they postphoned it because of problems AND the fact that it appearantly has been terrible for years nowā¦ Iāve mailed them before but no response at all. I will mail JLPT Japan with a serious complaint for the location Leiden. If they canāt deliver, then they shouldnāt be offering. Iām sure there are other universities with more modern IT infrastructures.
@bunnypro Belgium and Germany are the nearest sites that offer the JLPT test but not earlier than december. Also a very vague/unknown when registration will open for these sites. I happen to be in Ireland at the UCD in december, if possible I will try to apply to take the test there. I read some good reviews about the location in Dublin!
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UPDATE: After stubbornly trying and giving up (it even gave me a notification that registrations were full!!!), I just tried again before going out to do some shoppingā¦ and to my amazement it worked!! The webtraffic must have declined and iām affraid that alot of people just gave upā¦ but you can register now! Cāmon @BreadmanNin , go for it!
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Same for me, gave up frustrated after trying it for 90 minutes, randomly checked it half a hour ago and this time it went throughā¦
Iām still not 100% sure that it actually worked, but they did let me pay for it, so hopefully
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Hey, I live in Dublin and took the test at UCD last December and Dec 2023 so I thought Iād chime in! Itās definitely a nice centre, the audio quality for the listening is good and the proctors are quite friendly and chill. There have been mild technical issues both times I registered, but in the end I was able to get in with no problems - definitely nothing like the disaster that seems to go on every year with Leiden at least.
Just to warn you though, Dublin hotels are crazy expensive! To be honest, if you have another country in mind, Iād recommend going there unless you have someone you can stay with or you donāt mind spending the extra money.
Edit: lol I didnāt see your next post, congrats on getting in in the end! But Iāll leave this here just in case itās useful for anyone else considering Dublin.
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