The road to Level 2

[Applecart]

I'm planning on sitting Level 2 this year and in order to help keep up motivation I've decided to post results of practice tests here.

Somehow or other I have ended up with a stack of practice tests and although I've done 2 I still have 9 left!

In the first practice test (July) I got 70.4%. My best section was Listening at over 80%, worst was kanji and vocab (64%). I was not able to finish the final section of the Reading / grammar component. I really wasn't suer whether to feel happy or dissapointed with the result. On balance, considering that I haven't yet covered all the kanji and vocab, I guess it's OK.

Second practice test (August) - 80% Both the kani/vocab and reading/grammar sections improved a lot (both over 80%), but the listening section dropped to just over 70%. I still haven't covered all the kanji and vocab so I feel quite happy with this result. Listening comprehension needs some work though as it is a bit hit and miss at the moment.

[Applecart]

I've done 5 practice tests since my last post here.

#3 Disaster! Dropped down to 74% due to a stuff up on the reading section. I got sucked in to obsessing over a few points I couldn't make sense of and wasted too much time. In fact I couldn't do the last 24 questions. When I later tried those 24 questions I got all but 2 of them right.

#4 80% Scored well over 80% 0n all sections except listening which was around 72%

#5 80% Some improvement in Listening, up to 75%, but a drop in the vocab section

#6 87% Scored over 90% on everything except listening and that improved up to 80%

#7 85% A drop in listening down to around 75% again.

I was really aiming to be able to score at least 90% on the test, but that is looking unlikely and the biggest problem is the listening section. The most annoying thing is that I screw up by not being able to recall the meaning of a word here and there. I recognize the word, recognize that I SHOULD know it but the meaning elludes me. Also, I have to admit that there are always one or 2 questions that are just too fast and with too much vocabulary for me to be able to keep up. Listening is my weak point.

Anyway, I've now got one practice test a week until the real thing.

[Keith]

Wow. It sounds pretty good to me.
How long have you been studying for level 2?

[Applecart]

Thanks Keith! I guess I'm just a "glass is half empty" kind of person.

Last year Intended to sit level 3 but didn't think of it until after applications had closed. Anyway I did the previous year's test and passed easily so I thought I'd try for level 2 this year. So I guess that means I've been studying for about 10 months.

I bought the Kanzen Master grammar book and couldn't make head or tail of it, so I bought the Unicom version as it seemed more approachable. It was, but it was still very heavy going. Not surprisingly I found that once I had more kanji onboard it got a lot easier.

[Keith]

Man, with another 7 weeks to go, if you keep studying, I believe you'll get over 90% on the real test!

How do you do so well on the grammar section? My goal is just to be able to understand the grammar enough to understand the meaning of the sentence. But I know the test questions require you to choose the correct grammar, and I don't have that kind of grasp on it.

[Applecart]

Basicaly just repetition really. The Unicom grammar book comes with CDs of the example sentences and I found that listening to those repeatedly was very helpful. It meant that I kind of developed a feel for what sounds right and what doesn't in a given context. I also went through the practice exercises of both that book and those in the Kanzen master book several times.

Later I translated the example sentences into English and studied from those trying to come up with the original Japanese. That not only helps to make sure I get the specific grammer point right, it also helps to reinforce other little things like when to use は　 when to use　が,　that な　joins nouns to ので & のに　 and basicaly just helps to get rid of that tendency to produce English-like sentences rather than natural Japanese. I've still a long way to go on that score score though!

90% on the test? Well with luck it could happen. But really, I will be grateful just to pass. But even if I suffer a total meltdown and fail the test, I'm aiming for level 1 next year. There is no way I'm studying for level 2 again

[Applecart]

#8). 80%

Kanji/vocab 92% My second best yet
Listening 82% My bext yet
Reading / grammar 73% My worst yet.

So what went wrong? Well, in the grammar section there were 34 questions and I got 32 right so that wasn't the problem. The problem was the reading section. Of 18 5-point questions I only got 10 right. The weird thing is that I didn't think there were many difficult ones and I was expecting to get around 14 to 16 right.

In some cases I kind of out-smarted myself (or should that be out-dumbed myself?) by ignoring the obvious answer because I thought it was just too obvious. Other ones I just stuffed up and except for about 3 or 4 which were difficult given the time constraint, I'm not sure how I stuffed up the others. I even missed out on the graph question which is really a gimme if you just eliminate the the options one by one.

[Keith]

A few questions:

1) How long does it take you to do the grammar?
2) How long does it take you to do the reading?
3) For the reading, is there an order to the difficulty of the problems? By that I mean, is there some pattern you've found which now you can tell where the easy problems are and which ones are going to be difficult, even before you read them?

I remember a graph question last year. Actually, about 4 problems related to one paragraph and containing a graph. I think I tried to read over it real quickly, because I had no time, and decided right away it seemed too complicated. So I just guessed at any old answer and went to another problem.

4) Are graph questions always easy like you said about this one, or is this just one which happened to be easy?

頑張れ！

[Applecart]

One of the practice tests I did had a space to write down how long you spent on each section. I didn't want to get too distracted by it so I just did it roughly to the nearest minute.

Reading sections
Section I. 6 Qs 17 mins
Section II 8 Qs 20mins
Section III 5 Qs 15mins

Grammer sections
Section IV 20 Qs 9mins
Section V 10 Qs 6mins


In my opinion the easiest (remembering that "easy" is a relative term!)type of question in the reading section is where they repeat a sentence / phrase from the reading and ask what it refers to. Usually these are pretty obvious. I also think the shorter reading questions tend to be a bit easier overall, but they do have some tough ones in amongst them as well.

I think that the graph questions are relativley easy as you can just solve them by a process of elimination. However, they do vary a lot in complexity and if you get a difficult one it can take time to work it out.

[synewave]

Great thread Applecart! I only found this site 2 days ago but already am feeling more positive about this year's JLPT. I'd say I'm in the same boat as Keith though, paddling away trying to chase the Applecart speeboat down.

I've only got back into studying recently. Been spending a lot of time going through Heisig's RTK1 which I would recommend 100% to anyone wanting to improve their Japanese. Although the time that I have put into doesn't necessarily mean I will pass the JLPT this year!

The best tip I got off this thread was to not worry about the grammar section but to concentrate on the reading section of the final paper.

Parts of the test that mess me up are parts 4 and 5 of the first paper (vocab) and the whole of the last paper! Kanji and listening are fine but that alone isn't enough to carry me through.

Hope you don't mind me posting my results on the thread.

Last week's (2002 past paper)

Kanji/vocab: 53%
Listening: 80%
Reading/grammar: 44%

Total: 55%

I started a new test last night (2003 past paper)

Kanji/vocab: 66%
Listening: 83%
Reading/grammar: pending


As far as studying goes, I use the kanji.koohii.com site for kanji but that is mainly for writing/meaning, as well as the MLC lists; listening practice is watching the TV; for grammar I use the 完全マスター文法問題対策、Unicom 文法編 and An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese.

There's still 5 weeks left...let's go!

[synewave]

Just to finish off the last post,

I started a new test last night (2003 past paper)

Kanji/vocab: 66/100
Listening: 83/100
Reading/grammar: 91/200

Total: 240/400

If I can get that or over in the real test, that will do nicely.

The way I approached the last paper was to spend my time on the reading section and guess the grammar part. This was a completely different way to how I had been attempting the final paper. It seemed to work quite well. My mark break down was I) 30/35; II) 15/45 III) 20/25 and then 16/76 for the remaining short questions.

So guessing in the last 3 sections, I reckon I should get between 14-18 marks. If I have time to answer one or two that I am 100% on, that would be a bonus.

But I am much happier now that I realise the reading section isn't impossible. All I have to do is forget about finishing the paper and concentrate on getting the big questions as 'right' as possible.

[Applecart]

No problem synewave, the more the merrier

I am impressed with your consistent high scores on the listening section and am hoping to be able to stay above 80 points from now on.

Up to now I have always done the reading / grammar section in the order given, but I might try doing the grammer sections first next time. I have read that advice a few times but it never made sense to me becasue you only have 70 minutes no matter what order you do the questions in. However, I have started to think that it might be good if it could relieve the feeling of being pressed for time while reading through those long questions. Well I will se how it goes anyway.

[synewave]

Applecart, as far as the test goes, my listening is going to have to carry me through. I've been living in Japan for over 3 years now, so as a "glass half empty" person myself, I often ask myself why my grammar and vocab is so bad! I must admit though in the listening there are sometimes questions that I just have to guess. If there are a couple of important words you just don't know, what else can you do?

As for the final paper, my grammar is just not good enough to warrent doing those questions first. My wife is going to pick me up the UNICOM reading book that Keith mentioned in another thread tomorrow. At the school I go to, not all that regularly, we have been using that book a bit.

I've also been using excel@japanese http://www.japaneselearningtools.com/ to try and beef up my kanji reading skills/vocab.

There are 2 more past papers that I will have a go at in November. Hopefully I can stay above 80 in the listening too.

By the way, I'm taking the test in Shizuoka city.

[synewave]

I downloaded the tests from 1991-1999 referred to in another thread from http://www.d-addicts.com/forum/torrents.php?search=jlpt&type=&sub=View+all&sort=

I've just done the 1991 文字・語彙 section. Scores were:

I) 19/20
II) 12/20
III) 8/15
IV) 9/10

Can't seem to find the weightings for the various sections. Does anyone know?

Also even though my parts 2 and 3 were pretty poor, I thought overall this test was slightly easier than tests over the last few years. Hopefully we'll get an easy one this year though!

[Applecart]

Thanks for that link to Excel@japanese synewave!

I like the fact that you need to type on the answers, stops any fudging on those vowel lengths.

I'm a bit concerned though about the system for determining the spacing between repetitions. With over 7000 entries I think a standard card-box type of system gets unmanagable. Of course, there may well be more to it than I could pick up after only using it for an hour or so.

The main draw-back however is that the English definitions are really awful. Errors all over the place and no consistency at all in terms of the information given on the nature of the word.

Still, after all that bitching, I intend to keep giving it a go becasue as a tool for cementing the readings it might just be a winner.

[Applecart]

Form the practice tests I've seen sections I and II are one point per question.

In some tests the remaining sections are all 2 points per question, while in others III is 2 points and VI is 3 points per question.

Your score for IV looks very good- that's normally the hardest. Well, for me anyway.

From what I can gather the general impression seems to be that the tests get harder each year, but I don't really know. Certainly last year's test had a lower average score than normal. I haven't done that one yet as I'm saving it for my last practice test.

[synewave]

Yeah the Excel@japanese is pretty good I think. I see that you signed up for the forum over there too! As it's still in beta I think the vocab issues can be forgiven for now. I started a thread over there yesterday regarding 'suggestions' for improvements to the translations.

What I like is that even on the lower level vocab, the kanji are relevant to JLPT 2. I picked up the reading for 計画 which came up on a JLPT 2 past paper but in Excel@japanese is included in the level 3 vocab.

Just did the 文字・語彙 section from 1992, unfortunately it looks like my previous result for section IV was a fluke!

I - 19/20
II - 15/20
III - 8/15
IV - 4/10

I much prefer the older versions of this section. The newer style where they have the 4 sentences that include the same word that you have to decide which is the most natural sentence really messes me up.

Time for some more vocab work.

[nokori3byo]

Hey, folks. I'm new here.

I just completed a a very humbling attempt at the 読解　文法 segment of the 2005 test. I timed myself and did the grammar section first, figuring that, if I started with my strong point, I could tackle the writing with greater ease. Nope. Grammar netted me a mere 50/70 and I had to rush through the reading, scoring only 60 points (15 of them on guesses). The end result was, I believe, 110/200. It really bugs me that reading is weighted so heavily, but what can one do...

With a strong result in 文字　語彙 [I got about 85] I could still get by with a 45 on listening, but I feel like that's cutting it way too close, especially with my hit or miss performance in that category.

For those who do score well in the final 200 point section, I have this to ask: what strategies do you use to maximize your points? More to the point, how does one go about studying for the reading component of the test? (Ah, but I see there's already a thread on that).

[synewave]

[nokori3byo]

Wicked. 80% on 聴解. Is it just me or was 2005 and easy year for listening? And kanji, for that matter...

To sinewave: thanks for your thoughtful reply. I'll definitely take note of Applecart's suggestion. I've done two full practice tests so far and it seems to me that reading is not always weighted as heavily as it was last year: 63% of the final section.

Since my goal all along has been to write the test with confidence (and not simply to put myself within striking distance of a pass), I am not yet molified. I still feel like listening is a bit of a wild card, and I'm still not sure how I'll approach 読解　and 文法.

I like those Unicom books, though. Maybe I'll take a spin down to Matsumoto tomorrow and grab the reading one.