Konnichiyall! How’s your 勉強（べんきょう）going? It’s late November, which means the Japanese Language Proficiency Test is once again looming around the corner. Anybody else taking it? This time I’m challenging the final boss!
To be honest, I’m not feeling the most prepared I’ve ever felt in my life. However, prepared or not, this is still my third time around with the JLPT. So, I thought it might be helpful to compile some of my last-minute study tips and test taking advice for y’all.
Most of these tips pertain to the reading section, because that’s definitely the area that trips me up, and I think that’s true for almost everyone who takes the JLPT. Also, the grammar and kanji sections are more just a matter of whether or not you know the information, as well as how fast you can recall it, whereas there’s a lot of room for strategy in the reading section.
Whether you’re taking the JLPT this Sunday or just want to try out a practice test, I hope these tips can help you out!
Tip #1 - Start timing your reading practices
Maybe you’ve already been doing this, or at least have done it a few times. But, if you’re someone who usually likes to read at their own pace and really understand each word in a practice text, this is the time to step out of the comfort zone. In this last week, more than looking up unknown words or grammar and learning new material from reading passages, we want to be working primarily on getting faster. This is especially true for the N2 and N1 levels, which make a huge leap from the first few levels in terms of material to time ratio.
If you want some JLPT practice material, here are some resources.
JLPT sensei offers a full downloadable practice test for each level.
If you've already done this test, or you're just looking for something more bite-sized than a full length exam, this website also has a ton of resources for every level and exam section.
No matter what material you use for practice, my advice is to treat it all like the real test during this last week. Time yourself and don’t stop to look up anything you don’t know - see what you can do with context, like you’ll have to do on the real thing. Only bother to look stuff up afterwards if you get a question wrong and can’t figure out why, or if there's a word you're repeatedly seeing that you don't know. Otherwise, it’s probably more worth your time to just do another practice. Don’t worry if you fail at first - better to fail now than in the real thing! Practice will improve your speed and skill at this, even if it doesn’t feel like it in the beginning.
Tip #2 - Refine your reading order
I don't know about you guys, but between state standardized exams and the SAT/ACT, it was drilled into my head countless times to always read the questions before reading a passage on an exam. Well, the same thing applies to the JLPT.
Your reading order should be:
Title → Questions → Answer Choices → Passage
Just like your grade school language arts teachers said, reading in this order will give you a hint as to what the passage is about before you read it. This helps you determine what details you should be reading for, versus what’s okay to skim. And just like back then, even if skimming and scanning Japanese doesn't feel exactly natural at first, that skill will develop with a bit of practice. Using the resources I listed in tip #1, try and see if you can manage just one or two practice passages a day up until the exam. You'll be able to polish your speed reading ability up before the end of the week and sit down on Sunday feeling a lot more confident.
One note on titles, because sometimes when you're self-studying, you miss some important things because nobody is there to point it out to you. Like me, for instance, who just discovered last week that starting at the N2 level, the long reading passages have TITLES. In my defense, I didn't notice this because the title is stuck down in the bottom right hand corner in a small font, and I'm always frantically reading these things trying to finish as fast as possible. But don't let the small font fool you! The title is (uh, obviously) a huge hint as to the contents of the passage! So, read this first, though beware it's usually in a pair of Japanese quotes behind the author's name, which is a waste of time to read.
Tip #3 - Move your hand
This one was really a game changer for me. When reading passages on the JLPT, please be constantly moving your hand to underline, circle, take notes, etc. The test will likely have some words already underlined, so go ahead and underline the entire sentence for these. Circle any keywords from questions. Be sure to also underline any important sentence connectors (だから、が、しかし) or strong opinion indicators (ではないか？) that seem to be pointing to the author's main ideas. I also tend to underline parts of answer choices or even summarize them in a couple English words while reading the choices.
Obviously, you can use all of these marks to speed up your question answering when you're referring back to the text. However, even if you don’t end up referring back to all of them, I find that the act of moving my hand as I read helps my brain to focus and better take in the meaning of the material. When I'm underlining, circling, and making notes, I feel more present on the page, and reading feels goal-oriented, helping me not to get as distracted.
Tip #4 - Take notes (even in the listening section!)
Speaking of marking on your exam, the listening section is another place where notes can really help you out. At any level, there are several questions that are listening only, with nothing written on the page. For me, it helps a lot to write down the questions numbers and also the answer choice numbers on my page. This way, I don't worry about getting anything out of order (which did actually happen to me on the N3 exam and was briefly terrifying and was the reason that I started writing on my listening section afterwards).
Going beyond just marking down your numbers, the N2 and N1 levels will include question(s) that require you to remember a fair amount of information that is only said one time. When I was taking the N2, it was about a couple selecting a holiday vacation package out of four choices. They described four package options at once, and from there on just referred to them by only one feature of the package, i.e. “the one with the bike tour” rather than repeating the keywords. If I hadn’t known this was coming and made notes for each of the four packages, I would’ve gotten mixed up and not been able to understand which package number they chose. It feels a bit silly, because at this point are they really testing our Japanese or just our short term memories, but regardless, be sure to jot down some quick notes in this section.
Tip #5 - Take the test out of order
At the N2 and N1 levels, the JLPT starts lumping kanji, vocabulary, and reading all together into one timed section. You don’t have to do it in the order that it's presented if it isn't to your liking. A lot of people choose to do the reading section first due to time constraints. On the N2, I was initially going in the regular order, but then I got nervous mid-grammar section and started the reading early. I finished the reading section before hurriedly going back to grammar at the end.
Taking the test out of order can definitely be an awesome strategy, but I do want to say that if you're considering this method, I highly suggest trying it out beforehand with a practice test so you know how much time to budget for kanji and grammar on the real thing. The last thing we want is a perfect reading section score but to fail because we ran out of time before answering the first part of the exam. To be honest, I wasn't able to fully finish the last page of the grammar section on my N2, which leads me into my next tip...
Tip #6 - When the clock runs out, GUESS
If you do end up running out of time on the JLPT, remember that this is a multiple choice test. Blank answers and wrong answers are treated the same, so please guess randomly rather than leave anything blank. You have a 25% chance of getting each guessed question right, as opposed to zero if you leave them blank.
The only situation that I suppose you maybe shouldn’t do this is if you’re purely taking the JLPT to assess your Japanese level. But even so, please remember that the JLPT, like most standardized tests, isn’t a very fair representation of a person’s Japanese level. Especially considering the lack of a speaking component, the JLPT really should only be used as a rough benchmark of your own or someone else’s level.
However, Japan is a test-taking society, and job opportunities here are significantly more abundant for foreigners who have the N2 and above, especially for people who aren’t native speakers of English. If you look at the JLPT test taker statistics, most people taking this test are taking it to try and go to school here, or to obtain better employment for themselves here or in their own countries. I'm also aiming for the N1 with the hopes of one day using Japanese in my work. So yeah, I’m definitely a big proponent of randomly filling in bubbles on any unanswered questions if the time gets down to the wire, and I did end up having to do this on the final page of grammar questions during the N2.
Tip #7 - Test Day Diet
Have you ever been told to eat fruit before an important interview or test? How about to eat more fish for the Omega-3s driven brain boost? Getting enough sleep and staying hydrated before your exam are obvious things to aim for, but let's go into slightly more detail about what you can eat to boost your brain power.
To be honest, I have no idea how much eating certain foods can actually do to help out during the JLPT, but I will say that I’ve taken bananas and salmon onigiri to 100% of the JLPTs I’ve ever taken and I have also passed 100% of the JLPTs I’ve ever taken. Correlation isn’t causation, and 2 data points don't make a trend, but if you have easy access to fruits, nuts, fish, and eggs, all of these foods are said to aid with test-taking. And if they don't, the placebo effect might.
Even if you don’t buy into this enough to go out an buy an ass-saving banana, I’d definitely advise eating something with staying power but not too heavy (something like oatmeal, salmon or tuna onigiri, scrambled eggs and peanut butter toast, etc.) and hydrating the morning of the exam. However, remember that you can’t drink anything during the test or use the bathroom, so don’t drink or eat too much right before. Also, bring healthy snacks like protein bars and fruit for the break(s), and have plenty of water on hand. You will definitely want to refresh yourself after all the reading before tackling the listening section.
Good luck on the JLPT!
That's all the advice I've got for you today. Let's go out there and tackle this thing together! Or in a communal spirit, anyway. If any of these tips help you, or if you have your own advice for taking the JLPT, please let me know in the comments! I'd love to hear your thoughts, opinions, and tips.
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Best of luck, y'all. Also, don't forget to bring your watch to the test site!
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Need more advice for the JLPT? Start here:
Want some Japanese Reading Practice? Check out some of my JLPT Reading Practices for all levels!
Intermediate Japanese Level (JLPT N3 - JLPT N2)
Beginner Japanese Level (JLPT N5 - JLPT N4)
As someone who has only taken the N3, it’s interesting to hear your strategies for the higher level exams! I’m not signed up to take the JLPT this year but you kinda make me want to start planning for next year. 🤔