Insights on the revised JLPT N1 Exam (July 4, JLPT N1 Exams @ 六甲台キャンパス)
Mission accomplished.
Today I took the JLPT N1 exam at Kobe Daigaku Rokkodai Campus (神戸大学六甲台キャンパス)… My room was at B109. I think there were around 70 of us in the room.
To adequately share my thoughts on the exam, I think it better to evaluate it in the ff. areas:
- Structure
- Number of Exam Items
- Time Allocation
- New Question Types
*For easier reading, I’ll refer to Language Knowledge (Vocabulary/Grammar) section as the first scoring section, Reading as the second scoring section, and Listening as the third or last scoring section.
**I’ll also refer to the Language Knowledge (Vocabulary/Grammar) and Reading as the first test section, and Listening as the second test section. Test Section basically means that on the same time block, you’ll be taking the assigned scoring section/s. (e.g., Language Knowledge and Reading(12:45 – 14:35), Listening(15:30-16:30))
- Structure – the structure and order of the new exam is now better if not tremendously improved. Moji, Goi and Bunpo (文字、語彙、文法) of the old exam were combined into the first scoring section, and reading on the second scoring section. I wasn’t able to appreciate this order until I took the exam. In the reading section of the old JLPT, you had to take it from back to front (Grammar first, short reading second, the long reading last) in order to answer as many questions as possible.
- Number of Exam Items – the number of test items has been appropriately reduced (for the first test section) and increased (for the second test section). From around 130 exam questions for the Reading/Grammar (around 50-60), plus Moji/Goi (around 60-70), the new exams now has around 71 questions for the first test section (around 45% decrease!). For the second test section, it has been adequately increased from 27 to 37 to cover the new type of questions.
- Time Allocation – finishing the reading exam is now humanely possible.
For the first test section, you had to complete it in 110 minutes. For the second test section, you had to finish it in 60 minutes. For the reading exam, I think there were 4 questions I was not able to completely answer (meaning reading a short passage and then answering), but it’s far better compared to around 8 items in the old exam! - New Question Types – the new types of questions were fun! Particularly, the “Sentential grammar 2 (Sentence composition)” (See sample questions, Page 11) and the “Quick response” of the listening section where you had to choose the correct response to a speaker.
Given the insights above, my evaluation of the new exam is that it has (tremendously?) improved and I think it will be more effective in measuring a person’s Japanese abilities.
Thank you Japan Foundation and the people behind this change!
Next steps for me would be:
- Revise Review Plan
- Revise Review Questions
- Revise JLPT Score Calculator
Here are a couple of pictures from the test site:
Well I’m a bit bitter because I’m almost 100% sure I would have passed the old test since it had much more kanji/vocabulary questions and you didn’t need to pass every section. BUT I must admit that the old version was a pretty pathetic ‘highest level’, however hard it may have been. I do think it was a little unfair that they didn’t give much of an idea about what could show up on the test since there was no precedent.
Yes, I agree with you.
The new test pattern ( JLPT N1) is more practical.
Specially choukai, And I think that was not very difficult for the person who is using day to day Japanese as well as using the Japanese in his/her work.
Dokkai part also increased, but I think the dokkai was not containing very difficult Kanji.
Brijesh Shukla
Well done review! Like you I too took the JLPT N1 exam just a couple weeks ago (though in South Korea not Japan) and I must admit that though I did not consider the points you made above in my own review of the exam, I concur completely! It was, as you put it, “far better”, “humanly possible” to complete, and fun indeed.
That being said, it was difficult and I will most likely be making a second attempt at the thing this December in Chicago.
Cheers!
~Dorian Wacquez
Thank you very much for your comments!
@Zack, you’re right about the new scoring section passing criteria. They said (thru e-mail) that it will be announced on September, the same time that the results will be sent.
> I would have passed the old test since it had much more kanji/vocabulary questions and you didn’t need to pass every section.
You’re certainly right about this. My score for Kanji/Goi compensated my poor score in listening when I took L2 last 2008.
@Brijesh Shukla, that was the word I was looking for – “practical”!
Ditto regarding choukai for people who use Japanese in his/her work. For the dokkai, I overlooked that the reading part increased. Will look into that.
@Dorian Wacquez, I’m actually putting up an article/post for JLPT N1 exam tips. Would appreciate hearing your inputs since you took the exam as well.