Passing All The Sections?

[Mr_dog]

Why aren't there any passing grades for Levels 4 and 5?

[asthenia]

There will be, they just haven't determined them yet. Check out this:
http://www.jlpt.jp/e/guideline/results.html

This addresses them a bit. I think we will probably get a similar breakdown in points as well as assessing strong points/weak points by letter grade - but even without that, you can calculate it out into a percentage yourself. I think the new system is just a lot nicer though.

[borrrden]

I too received my pass certificate for N2 in the mail. Excited, I quickly calculated my percentages. They came to:

Language 67%
Reading 77%
Listening 65%
Overall 69%

To me, below 65 is failing so I was saying "phew...barely made it!!" Curious, I looked at the JLPT website and noticed that the passing grade was 50% overall and about 33% for each section. Shocked, I decided it must be an error. What is possibly good about scoring a 50% on an exam?! I felt a little insulted. I busted ass studying for this test. Should I have even bothered? Well, of course for me the answer is yes because the goal is actual proficiency and not just a test score, but still....come on......50%?!

The one thing I will say, though, is that I took a lot of the practice tests from previous years. The listening, in particular, was on a whole different level this time. I couldn't believe my ears!! My only hope is that they made the test so difficult this time that the grade curve was thrown off, forcing them to lower the bar. Maybe they will make the test slightly easier and raise the pass grades again. For some reason, I doubt it though.

[julianjalapeno]

I got my results back too and had a similar result and reaction. I'm happy I passed and am glad it was over 60% (so even if the score system hadn't changed, it would still be a pass) but the fact that you only need 50% made me feel a little short-changed. I am very curious the number of passing grades this time and would be shocked if it's less than half (which was the average result for previous years).

I did feel that the test was harder than older ones, so I guess this was an adjustment to address the new difficulty, but I think they went a little overboard.

[Patorioto]

I don't know why people are getting so hung up over the pass line.

This isn't a test like back in college when you know exactly what will be included and can study a limited set of information. They pick a small amount from a very long list of words, kanji, and grammar points.

I felt the listening was very very easy, easier than before but the kanji section seemed harder with less easy gimme questions.

Then again, kanji and vocab are my weak points so I imagine this is different for every person (I got 100% on listening but 55% on vocab lol)

[Blastoise]

Yeah, if you people got a 58%, you'd be jumping for joy.

[bullruckle]

After finally passing 2 kyuu last year with 69%, i thought I'd take the N2 test in July just for fun after not doing any hard study for 6 months and little review.
Got my results today: 91/180. Thank God they dropped the pass mark to 50% hey

Though to be honest, after passing last years 2 kyuu, I'm not sure i like myself and others being able to pass at 50% on the new test...
Anyway, time for a giri giri celebratory Beer

[Meyem]

For those that passed this July: congratulations!!!

[borrrden]

[Michael]

A few people are complaining that they passed the JLPT but the low pass mark makes the test less meaningful.

From my experience in Japan, low pass marks for tests is common.
My friend just passed the first test for becoming an English teacher in Japan. He scored %39 on the English written exam. I looked at the test and it was ridiculously hard. But of the 70 people that took it, he was one of the 9 that passed.

That is just the way they sometimes make tests in Japan. I would suggest stop judging the system from you own cultural standpoint, and try to understand it through Japanese culture. It is just different point of view. But people don't get very far judging other cultures through their own cultural biases.

Michael

[julianjalapeno]

Please get off your high horse. It's pretty unfair to say it's some form of racism or xenophobia that people would have problems with the new test scoring. The test is not one where only 9 of 70 people pass and is not significantly harder than the previous format, so lowering the pass means it'll be easier to get and thus doesn't feel like as big of an accomplishment for some people.

In the end, it's still a decent indicator of one's skills and people that pass should feel proud that their studying has paid off.

[pj]

I just posted the messgae below in a parallel discussion on these boards. Please don't get hung up on percentage score because your result is not a percentage.



The new scoring system for the JLPT is almost certainly based on Rasch IRT:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Item_response_theory

Essentially, the scoring system aims to give you credit for how good you are, not just how many questions you got right. So, basically, as someone mentioned, you get more credit for correctly answering items that few other people could answer correctly (ie. if you can answer more difficult items that suggest that you've got a relatively high ability in Japanese).

But, people seem to be a little hung up on what the pass percentage is. The scores on the test are not based on percentages. Conceptually, this can be hard to grasp, especially since they've just moved from a system based on percentages. But, I say again, The scores on the test are not based on percentages. How it works is that they statistically figure out the difficulty of the items and the ability of the people taking test. And if they're using IRT, and I don't know of any other up-to-date way of doing this, the scores will typically be between -3 and 3 (this is just how the stats model works) and the average will be 0.

Then, they decide how to transform the scores into something that intuitively makes more sense to people than -.066, or whatever. One way of transforming the scores on a single test (they obviously didn't use this method for the JLPT scores) is thru the formula: X=50+10L (L stands for logits, which is the -.066 score or whatever) and X is your final score. In the example formula, the scores are centred on 50. And the spread of the scores that we get is hugely dependent on the 10 in the formula. So, my point is that the score we get is just an artificial creation. Do not think of it as a percentage. they could just as easily up everyone's score and you would have done exactly as well as you did, and it would be exactly as difficult to pass the test.

Anyway, the new scoring system is much better. And they can use it to keep the difficulty of the test consistent. But, don't get hooked up non-existent percentages.

[artsylar]

I passed the N2 exam too(over 65%). I also don't agree with just 50% passing grade. I think it is too low to prove that you can really understand their language. I am also not satisfied with my score in vocabulary and reading so I'll still continue studying N2 before aiming for N1. There's no point on getting to the next level if you haven't mastered N2 yet.

[Patorioto]

[julianjalapeno]

They`ve updated the official site with the number of people who passed: http://www.jlpt.jp/e/statistics/archive/201001.html.

N1 was a little higher than usual (30-40% instead of 30%), but N2 did indeed have a real jump, almost doubling from last year.

[borrrden]

[Michael]

[yingxuy]

I am afraid this means that they have greatly increased the difficulty level of the test, it is the only way to Wedding Cufflinks explain such a low score.