Re: Japanese Language Proficiency Test 2005

i current hold the level 2 cert, and i got 320 points out of 400. But
at the time i took the test i only knew grammer/vocabulary from jlpt
level3 (maybe abit more but i was definitely much closer to level 3
standard when i took the test). there were ALOT of vocab and grammar
that i didnt study before, thus didnt know, when i took the test, but
it really is rather easy to guess answers alot of the time.

- with grammatical knowledge it is possible to predict which answer is
grammatically wrong
- it was a level 2 test, but naturally there would still be level 3
content in it, maybe one or 2 of the answers
- sometimes the questions asked were still level 3 standard questions,
or level3 with one or two level2 grammer or vocab thrown somewhere in
the qn, and thus i could answer those rather easily.
- likewise with listening, sometimes i might not understand parts of a
sentence, but when they are all linked together in a passage things
usually become clearer and its easier to know or guess the answer.
- reading fast in comprehension isnt that tough... i dont consider
myself a fast reader, i have quite a few friends who absolutely blaze
through texts, but i have no problems reading fast enough to not run
out of time.
- when i reach kanji i dont know, i kinda read it in chinese in my
brain and continue with the japanese text, and most of the time i can
understand the meaning of the sentence, because i already know the
chinese meaning of the word, and it is usually very similar to the
japanese meaning in the "on yomi" cases and similar sometimes in the
"kun yomi" cases. This really gives a huge advantage over others who
dont know chinese... unless, the person who doesnt know chinese already
has studied longer of course. but thats a disadvantage in itself. Maybe
even without knowledge of chinese, it could be possible to guess the
answer rather accurately with just grammatical knowledge, and infering
the meaning from the text, but its definitely a great advantage to know
for certain or be more sure in some cases about the meaning of
text/questions/answers.

and of course, all of the above is possible because jlpt2 was totally
multiple choice

but all in all i found alot of level 3 content in 2, enough to pass the
test even tho i hardly knew any vocabulary beyond level 3, and only
abit more grammar beyond level3, it was enough to get me the cert...
albeit with a little "cheating" with chinese. But i could get 320 out
of 400, which wasnt that bad i think, and i could finish the paper
40mins-1hour before time(forgot exactly how much earlier since i took
it last year... but i remember it was VERY much earlier), and i only
had level3 knowledge at the time i took the paper... that made me think
that jlpt wasnt really that great a gauge of how proficient one was in
japanese. If say the questions/answer in the paper were not written
down, but spoken thru a cassette or cd, with the option to rewind where
needed, meaning that if i had no text to refer to, i have no doubt i
would have failed the test, or at best maybe just scrape through
barely.

Even among people with same jlpt level i see big gaps in the actual
proficiency they are at sometimes, either in oral/listening, written
proficiency or both.

Of course, the above account was just a from a level3 guy with chinese
knowledge taking the level2 test, not the level1 test. I think it may
be safe to speculate that if i could take level2 with level3 standard,
it could be very possible to pass 1 with level2 standard as well
(although i was really AT level3 standard when i took the test; i
knew/understood everything, or almost everything belonging to level3
without any doubts). I have heard from many that the jump from 3 to 2
is bigger than the jump from 2 to 1... wonder how true that is.
Regardless, i'm just trying to say that i dont think jlpt is a really
good gauge of proficiency especially when it comes to
speaking/listening... throw a person with jlpt1 in japan and he/she
would still have to adapt, though maybe faster than a non jlpt1 holder.
I dont know, but even with jlpt1 i think it could be possible that some
people might still have trouble understanding the average novel or book
on the shelf of a japanese bookstore. To me at least, the process
through which one learns japanese is alot more important than any jlpt
certificate.

.

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