I Survived the JLPT

This past Sunday I and many other foreigners all across this great nation took the Japanese Language Proficiency Test!

Seriously.

Since I live in Saitama my assigned test site was Saitama Daigaku, which seemed like a typical Japanese campus and thankfully nothing terrible stood out about the place.

I got to my test room about 15 minutes before the test began, and it was almost all men in the room! It was quite intimidating walking in and having all these eyes staring at me, and all men on the side by the door so I had to keep my best bitch-face on so no one would talk to me. There were two other American-looking girls, maybe two Filipino girls, and two really loud Chinese girls. I nervously took a seat at the back because one of the proctors was speaking and I did NOT want anymore attention, but he came over and told me there was assigned seating and led me to my seat. Embarrassing!

My nerves settled down as we started the exam period, mostly because it took so damn long to even start. Each test section began with a 15-minute block of time dedicated to checking our test vouchers, checking that we were in the correct seats, passing out the exam materials, and filling in information on the test booklets. They checked our pictures on the test vouchers THREE TIMES. And there were two 30-minute breaks between the test sections, so we all wasted at least an hour and 45 minutes doing nothing. I was annoyed.

The test itself wasn't too bad. The test prep book I bought was well worth the money and I knew how to do each section of the exam without thinking about it. Practicing online with iKnow also helped a lot, there were at least a dozen items on the test I knew directly from that study service. There were a few items I blindly guessed on, but I felt confident on at least 85% of the written exam.

The listening section was harder, but only because I cannot bubble in numbers very quickly. The conversations were fine but I'd only get through bubbling in half of the answer and the next question would start, and then I'd get all panicky and flustered and miss something. I think I did okay, though.

Overall, I'm glad I took it and I came out of the test a lot more confident than I thought I would. I will receive the results of the exam next February. In the meantime, I'm going to buy the new Sandaime J Soul Brothers album + dvd + live dvd tomorrow as a reward for all my hard work!

WORK IT, NAOKI. I love muscles, too!