JLPT round 2 – taking N1 in Japan

I wrote about my experience taking N2 overseas two years ago and shared some tips about preparing for the exam. Thankfully after all that preparation I passed by a wide margin. This time I took N1 in Japan, and I think I most likely passed it again (I'll find out in a few days...). So what advice can I come up with this time?


 1. The key is to boost your reading speed

I was already familiar with the format of the exam so I didn't do very many practice questions this time. About a week and a half before I took the free N1 sample on the JLPT website and didn't get a great score. My weak point was vocab and grammar so I went about studying as much grammar as possible, and memorised a list of "N1 grammar points". But in the end a) the real reading and grammar was significantly easier than the sample, though vocab was rather tough and b) hardly any of the grammar I had specifically memorised came up, maybe two points – まじき and ないまでも. A lot of the grammar questions were something like this:

木がきれいな花を( )
1. 咲いた　2. 咲いている　3. 咲かせた　4. 咲いていた

I knew the phrase 花が咲くand realised the answer was most likely 3 because it was the only one not conjugated from 咲く. But this is not the kind of grammar you're going to come across in a list of grammar points, so memorising them will only get you so far.

As with N2, I only just had enough time to complete all the questions and couldn't check my answers over. I've started reading short stories in Japanese recently and I thought I'd have a bit more time left over than when I took N2, but it wasn't the case. That reading speed was what held me back here, because if I'd had time to think over the vocab and grammar questions I'm sure I could have got a few more right.

Depending on your reading speed, it may be a matter of improving it enough that you have time left over to check your answers, or just enough that you can complete all the questions in time. But certainly this is the most important preparation that you can do in my opinion.

If you're interested in fiction, I thoroughly recommend the “short shorts” of Hoshi Shinichi. You can often find his books in BookOff. He generally uses quite simple language but in reading his stories I came across a large number of the “N1 grammar” points that I crammed. Not every story is great but you can polish off each one relatively quickly so you don't feel like you've wasted too much time on it.

Of course if you are weak at listening you should try to practise that too, however the standards for listening are very low. Actually some of the other candidates didn't even seem to understand the instructions that were given to us at the beginning of the test, such as “take your rubber out of the paper case” (this was repeated at least 5 times) and “we're going to check your faces so place your test voucher photo side up please”.

2. Bring a watch and time out each section

There was a clock in the exam room but it was covered up. They also don't tell you how much time you have left at any point. I still don't understand why. The person next to me didn't bring a watch so I took mine off and placed it in between us so she could see it. I'd wager a lot of other candidates weren't as lucky as her and had to guess how much time they had left. I've heard some people say digital watches aren't allowed – maybe this depends where you take the test but an analogue wristwatch is a safe bet anyway.

3. Bring food and drink

Since the test usually takes place on a Sunday in a university, a lot of places will be shut and there may be no conbini nearby. If you're not familiar with the area it may be hard to find a vending machine. So bring snacks and a drink. Also due to the large number of candidates it's much more convenient to use the toilet somewhere other than the test site before arriving.



Overall taking the test in Japan wasn't all that different from the UK, except that as mentioned above I actually felt the competition was lower when it came to the listening section!

Edit: Passed! With a better score than I predicted too :)