Level 3 - Gross overestimate of my ability?

[Neo]

Hi friends,

I have just applied for the L3 exam to be held in approximately 6 weeks. After reading some of the posts I am getting quite worried. I have been studying Japanese for about 18 months, and am currently working through Japanese for busy people 2.

I looked at the JLPT L4 and it seems quite easy for me, however, L3 seems quite "challenging".

Any suggestions for a 6 week crash course to best prepare for the exam?
In addition to the Kanji and vocab for L3/4 How much of a working knowledge of Jap for Busy People 3 would I need for the exam?

Thanks, Neo

[spurrymoses]

Yeah, it looks like one of the most useful things the JLPT Study Site can do for people is to stop them thinking they can skip grades without an extremely good reason

The trouble with thinking that Level 4 is so easy, is that you have to know the easy stuff really well. And your listening skills need to be well above average (for that stage of learning) to get an average mark for the comprehension.

I don't think there's any crash course fixes - I think JLPT is the best exam I've come across for preventing crash-course people succeeding - I'm sure they've seen it all before. They put in all sorts of odd, one-off, border-line vocab and kanji to make you get as many wrong as possible

I would concentrate on the grammar. I think it's the hardest and the trickiest. And by covering grammar, you will probably be adding to your vocab and kanji by default.

I don't know about the Japanese for Busy People books, so I can't comment on that.

But the deep-end is not always a bad thing. Good luck!, you never know...

[JanneM]

I would add, as one who used Japanese for Busy People, that if you haven't started book 3, you're going to have quite a hard time on the exam. It's the grammar, true, but it's the vocabulary too - and since the vocabulary is used throughout the test, you may well miss some grammar questions simply because your lack of vocab made you not understand the context.

Me, I'm going to Level 2 this winter, and realistically I don't have a chance. I'm in a similar situation to you, where I just haven't gone through all the material I need to know and I don't have enough time left to make up for it. I see this year as a practice exam, an aim to do really well on my level next year instead. See it like this: It'll be fun next year when we can calmly sit and breeze through the level, idly looking at the other people sweating through the test