Last Tuesday, August 27, I finally got my Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) N2 result and I still couldn't believe I passed!

I really thought I would fail the exam because:

1.) I didn't study enough. I was so distracted with the issues/problems I had during those period that I already branded myself as #TeamDecember few months before taking the exam.

2.) I focused my review on grammar (I even bought a grammar drill book) but all the grammar lessons I studied and memorized were useless in the exam!

3.) I didn't review for the other parts of the exam. But hey, that wasn't intentional. I was originally planning to start with kanji and vocab but I guess my brain couldn't handle too much information so before it exploded, I chose to start with grammar instead. But what a sweet surprise! N2 grammar lessons were also difficult. So much for thinking it was the lesser evil. The nuances and very slight differences between some grammar lessons drove me crazy. But at least grammar wasn't heavily concentrated on memorization, so at least I can confidently say that I retained more information in here than when I tried (and failed) to start first with kanji and vocab. And because grammar was very time-consuming, I never managed to actually study kanji and vocab. Hopefully, I will be able to study the reference materials I bought even though the exam was already over.

4.) I didn't sleep the night before the exam. My head was aching all throughout the day, feeling like a zombie while sipping coffee float to keep my eyes open, that I swear if I retake the test, I will never ever try an all-nighter again. Cramming was never a good habit. I know that but I kept on doing it during exams. (ノ_<。)

5.) I didn't know a lot of the kanji and vocab which appeared in the exam. It was already hard to guess the correct answer when you recognized only one kanji from the word/term in question. But it was harder when you didn't recognize both or when you recognize both kanji but didn't know what they mean nor how they are read when combined.

6.) The listening part was the hardest part of the exam. Due to my hobby, listening has always been the easiest section for me. That's why I was baffled at how difficult it was, considering that I found the N3's listening part to be easy. I really didn't expect for N2's listening section to be a giant leap from N3's.


So when I found out my score, I even asked my friend to double check the result for me because I doubted the result. (Thought it must be a system glitch or my eyes were just playing tricks on me or my impostor syndrome was kicking in.) But the result was still the same. I really passed the exam! (꒦ິ⌑꒦ີ)

In this year's JLPT, I answered the reading section first. It was something I've never done before. But I've read a lot of sites which recommended this JLPT technique so I decided to try it (my mindset that time: I will be retaking in December, anyway, so why not?) and I'm glad I did!

Not only did I save time, it also gave me more patience and concentration to read the giant walls of text and understand the paragraphs and what was being asked about. So after the exam, I was more confident on my reading scores than the rest of the exam parts. Heck, I was more confident on it this time compared to my reading sections in previous JLPT.

So imagine how my confidence was instantly crushed into millions of pieces when I saw that my reading score was only 32 points over 60. Yeah, sure it was more than half but I expected I did better than this. But looking back, maybe the reason for my overconfidence was because I thought I understand most of the paragraphs/stories and the questions I've read. But in reality, I didn't. I was not able to fully grasp them, or my comprehension level was not enough to determine the correct answer.

Ironically, I felt my listening score was a poorly written joke or just pure luck. Although I've answered some questions smoothly, there were moments during the exam wherein I didn't catch up the question or the choices because I spaced out. I have so many answers which were merely guesses. I couldn't believe I managed to guess the right answers.


I couldn't say anything more about my language knowledge score because it was realistically low. For someone like me who didn't really made a serious effort in studying N2 kanji and vocab, that's a pretty high score.

Overall, my score shows which areas I need to work on and improve.

Now, if you are going to ask me what my next goal is, I won't say it's passing N1. I need to concentrate more on using the language by reading and/or speaking so all what I've studied wouldn't go in vain. During the two years I slacked off, I forgot so many vocabularies, kanjis, and grammar points I knew all because I never used it. I don't want to repeat the same mistakes again so I really hope I could make a decent progress in reading books as it was one of the most effective ways to retain what you already knew and learn what you didn't know yet.