These are the tips from the students who passed Grade 2 exam.

Charles Coyne - 1st March 2003

Your Japanese Achilles heel - advice for passing the Level 2 Japanese Proficiency Exam

My advice for getting your hands on the level 2 certificate is to spend some time analysing the equivalent of your Japanese Achilles heel.


It may seem obvious but concentrating on your weakest area will have the greatest impact on improving your overall score.


As most of you are well aware the exam is broken into 3 distinct sections - Writing-Vocabulary, Listening and Reading-Grammar with an overall percentage of 60% required to pass.


Although we all have a weak points you can't afford to have a section where you really have a disaster.


I was very lucky to have spent some years working for a software company in Tokyo and although I haven't spent as much time studying Japanese formally I picked the language up step by step while I was over there, through lessons at my company, private study and communicating with my colleagues.

Consequently it was clear to my teacher back in the UK that my listening skills were relatively strong and it would be the Reading-Grammar section that would decide whether I passed or failed.


Identifying your weaknesses is a great way to help you focus and concentrate on the task in mind and each week we practised and practised previous Reading-Grammar section exam papers.


I would go through one section each weekend, making conditions as close to exam conditions as possible, ie. no looking up vocabulary and equally importantly strictly timed.


It soon became apparent that reading Japanese quickly which you need to do and understanding the subtlety of the expressions was where my teacher and I needed to concentrate our efforts.


Luckily for me I had a teacher who was able to identify this area of weakness and we both managed to overcome it sufficiently enough to pass the exam, it is the area that will need even more effort for Level 1.


Paper 1: 70/100
Paper 2: 90/100
Paper 3: 97/100
Total: 257/400 (65%) Pass