The aftermath

So a few thoughts on the JLPT Level 2:

I went into this thing not expecting to pass, and not really killing myself over it. I haven't seriously studied in over two weeks. My main goal was basically to see how much I could understand and answer so that I can prepare well for the one in the summer. That said, I was still a little nervous. Test is a test.

I guess it shouldn't have surprised me, but about 95% of the people in my room were Asian, probably Chinese or Korean. For some reason I was expecting more white/black/hispanic people.

I think I need to work almost exclusively on reading. While there were a decent amount of vocabulary and kanji that I didn't understand, I felt like I had most of the grammar under control. That said, I think the reading section was the toughest part, and kanji/vocab comprehension are just an extension of being able to read.

Surprisingly, I found the listening section to be a lot easier than the reading part. Although I wouldn't say I owned it, I felt a lot more confident in most of my answers. Though I don't like how they try to trick or misdirect you - some of the questions will give you like 2 minutes of dialogue and place the answer either at the very beginning or add it quickly to the end. It was frustrating that there were one or two problems where I understood 95% of what was said, but then missed a quickly spoken sentence or phrase and found myself unable to answer the question.

Well, the results will be delivered in February. Not sure why it takes so long - the test is scantron. Oh well. I think I'll be happy with a score in the 40s or 50s. Plenty of room for improvement for the next test, but also plenty of room to breathe. We'll see.