Hi,
I took this December the JLPT N5.
I didn’t end confident in passing it, I know my way of learning is not the best method, so this question is not about justifying my lack of skills. But I was a bit surprised as one question asked about the correct kanji for eigo. It wasn’t a difficult question, and I know the word is in every list of N5 vocabulary, but I thought they wouldn’t ask for the kanjis that aren’t on the list of N5 kanji.
I also know that those N5 Kanji lists are not official, and both kanjis on the word are on N5 and N4 lists. But I was a bit surprised.
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Why were you surprised knowing there is no official list? Also, which list were you using? The kanji for “Eigo” were some of the first I ever learned…
Aside from that, a question like that could be answered just by eliminating the other answers. You might’ve done better than you think.
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Well done for taking the exam!
JLPT’s always a fuzzy set of things really.
From what I understand, it’s common to have a couple of questions outside any shared vocab/kanji lists, but within the same rough level that someone at N5/4/… could reasonably get.
This could be on purpose (to discourage people memorising the lists alone), or it could just be that it’s hard to test people’s language level from a predefined list alone.
But I would say, it’s completely normal to get some (even quite a lot) of questions wrong in JLPT. The pass mark is quite low (~50% dependent on N-level), so it’s very normal to get questions wrong on whatever the N level people take.
The main thing is that by taking the JLPT, you’ve probably studied and thought about Japanese a lot more than otherwise. And probably through that you’re Japanese is a lot better because of it.
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Just as @samburv said, the JLPT often throw in kanji from the level above as little red herrings. They purposely include material you wouldn’t have studied to see how you deal with the time crunch. It’s a really petty and annoying facet of the test, but Japanese standardized testing is a lot like that.
They even say on the packet in the beginning that some questions won’t count towards your final score (again very stupid) because those kind of questions are purposely included to trip you up.
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They need questions which are possibly above or below the intended level of difficulty both to gauge the value of each question/answer (more difficult questions count for more) and also so they can know what is reasonable to put on the test in the future. They aren’t there to deliberately trip you up as such; it’s just hard to know exactly what level people sitting the test actually are, especially at N1 level where the range of abilities is quite large. Obviously it kind of sucks sitting a test and knowing there will be difficult questions but since the pass threshold is so low I personally think it helps remove the mental burden of feeling like you need to get 100%. Other scoring methods are likely worse (for this kind of test) when you start comparing them, in my opinion.
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There are a few lists I searched, but on every list is on N4. And, for example, on jisho org, the first kanji:
appear as N4.
The second is listed as N5 (and it was printed on everyone’s voucher on our tables, hahaha)
But i’m not complaining that it was avobe our level. It’s an easy word, and I think most people would have this one right.
But it surprised me as i wasn’t expecting it.
There isn’t such a thing as “above” or “under” the level. There’s only the N1-N5: Summary of Linguistic Competence Required for Each Level and the “can-do” list. It’s not made to trip you up and see how you deal with it. It’s just a test to see if you’re prepared to deal with that level of content.
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Returning to my point. My surprise was that for words I assumed knowing the kanji was not necessary, now in my next test they may be needed to know.
For example, I can understand the word 消す,
But I probably won’t recognize it without the kana above it if it’s written without it, or I may not be able to answer correctly to a test that asks for the kanji if I see the hiragana and there are a couple similar kanjis to choose from.
As I don’t have studied for it, as I assumed this kanji would appear later even if I know the word
JLPT will throw a few things above your “level” in, it’s just how it is. So yeah, knowing a decent number of kanji above the level of the test you’re taking isn’t the worst idea to get some easy marks from the kanji reading section.
Is it surprising, I guess to some people it is. Maybe I’m used to mean teachers. 
I just learn the kanji for every new vocab that has them. Solves the problem in quick order.
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Perhaps my wording was strange, or perhaps you haven’t written a test lately, but they most certainly DO throw in Kanji from the N1 can-do list in N2 JLPT exams. I’m not sure what you mean by no such thing by “above” or “under” when the can-do lists themselves are classified according to JLPT level…
On the test itself it is written and the proctors themselves also mention that there are questions designed to test how well you deal with time management because they are not going to count towards your score.
Like I said before, the tests have these red herrings that aren’t at all related to your language ability assessment. They’re simply there to trip you up and unfortunately that is the Japanese exam system.
This type of non-graded questions isn’t anything uniquely Japanese, we have it in Sweden too (and I would assume other countries use it as well). The purpose of these questions (called testfrågor in Sweden) is to help design future exams, to make sure that the questions aren’t too easy or too difficulty.
It’s not thrown in there just to mess with the test takers.
Edit: In fact our version of, I guess SAT, is called högskoleprovet. It consists of 200 questions, broken up into five smaller exams you write in a single day. Of these five exams one consists entirely of “testfrågor” that doesn’t count towards your final grade. So only 80% of the questions are “real questions”, the other 20% are to help ensure that the grades for future exams are within the expected distribution curve.
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