These are the tips from the students who passed Grade 4 exam.

Tom Law - February 2007

TomI decided to take the exam as I found myself becoming lazy with my study between lessons, and I felt that it would give me something more specific to work for.


The main revision technique was simply studying past papers - I did 1 every week for about 3 months prior to the exam. A lot of it is down to memorising things (kanji, vocab etc..) so it is pretty vital to go about it in an organised way.


The Kanji cards from the J4A website worked for me. I did not learn to write the kanji, only to recognise them - they sometimes use 'fake' kanji in the exam with tiny differences from the real characters.
Once I had realised this, I had to be a bit more thorough in my revision.


For the listening paper I found that if I managed to remain focussed throughout each question it was ok - if your mind wanders for a second then it is very tricky.
I made short notes in the exam while listening but this actually put me off once or twice.


Studying the past papers was most helpful for the reading and grammar paper. By doing so many past exams you get to know exactly what kind of questions will appear.


I found that with all the papers the time allowance is easily enough, and I also had a lengthy break between each paper. If you want something to work for, then I definitely recommend taking the exam.


With the exam being all multiple choice it makes it fairly low stress, and Udagawa Sensei makes sure that everyone is properly prepared before sitting it in December.

Kanji/Vocab - 91/100
Listening - 82/100
Reading/Grammar - 182/200
Total - 355/400

おめでとうございます。

Read his exam diary.

Valerie Michele in December 1997

I made hundreds of cards for kanji, vocabulary and grammatical functions. Each vocabulary card carried just one entry, the meaning of which was clearly illustrated by one or two examples. The example cited were both from both the past exam papers and the workbooks chosen by Kazuo.
The grammar cards had just one function on each card, and carried brief and clear definition of each function in English, plus some examples to illustrate this function. The tari,tari form, for example, was defined as doing several things with the example being 'Wabash wa resutoran ni ittari sampo o shitari shimashita'.
My kanji cards had the on-yomi and kun-yomi, some phrases from relevant materials to illustrate the meaning, and a brief definition of its meaning in English. I chose not to cite any kanji or its example from cards commercially available from Japanese bookstores in London because some cards had the irrelevant kanji and examples.
Everyday I went over these cards to learn new things or refresh, and revise what I had learned in the previous months in the run-up to September. Card making was a very time-consuming process but I knew I could only remember well what I had written myself.
I worked very hard from September to early December by taking two two-hour private lessons. I did listening practice only in the class with Kazuo because I believed that I could not do it properly on my own.
In the exam, the time allocated to was very tight, so I did not have enough time to ponder. I really had to jump from one question to another. I did not remember so much of what I had answered after the exam.


Tony McMahone in December 2004 - Paper 1: 100 / 100, Paper 2: 50 / 100, Paper 3: 143/200
Overall: 293/400- PASS

I just passed the Level Four exam which was a huge relief - taking it after about fourteen months of lessons with Kazuo. Breaking down the three papers, I'd give the following advice.

On Paper One, which focusses on vocabulary, I scored very highly.
I knew I had to get a good score here as my practice test scores on the second listening paper had been so bad in the lessons.
For Paper One, I'd advise any student to become best friends with their dictionary. Just keep one with you all the time and think up any word that comes to mind during the day. Good dictionaries always give examples of sentences these words are used in. The Oxford Starter Japanese dictionary (Oxford University Press) also explains how words like 'must' or 'get' or 'hope' can not be translated literally and also, how there is often more than one way of expressing these words/concepts in Japanese. I recommend this dictionary highly even if its range of words is a bit limited.

Early in my studies, I used a Romanji to English dictionary (Basic Japanese-English dictionary published by Bonjinsha) because it had more words and it was less scary to look things up in Romanji than hiragana/katakana. But you have to get away from the crutch of Romanji as quickly as possible and start thinking in Japanese characters. Tough, but essential. You need about a hundred Kanji to feel comfortable going in to this exam.

Having just returned from Japan, it's also clear that Kanji are the building blocks of the written language - you've only scratched the surface with hiragana and katakana. Go to the Japan Centre and see which Kanji learning book suits you - or if you prefer cards, buy them.
I know most people say they like to learn off cards but I found Basic Kanji Book Volume I, published by Bonjinsha, the best way to learn. You write the symbols over and over again and also you see how they work inside sentences. With the cards, I just find that the Kanji are looked at in an isolated manner and you don't see how single words in Japanese are split up between their Kanji and hiragana components.

The other extremely important thing you need to master for the exam is a solid knowledge of the basic particles you have learnt in Book I and Book II. I still trip up endlessly over the use of 'ni' and 'de' in the lessons but for the exam - I made sure I understood where those two particles are used. If it doesn't seem clearly explained in Japanese For Busy People, then look for a clearer explanation elsewhere.

Kazuo's list of particles should be memorised for both Paper I and Paper III. Ditto Kazuo's list of vocabulary. Don't turn up for the exam without having tested yourself on these lists. Japanese verbs can be quite infuriating because they can look so similar to western eyes. Tsukimasu, tsukaimasu and tsukemasu are all very different - I suspect it's easier to tell them apart when they're written in Japanese characters and you use them in conversation.

For Paper III, it was vital to know all the key verbs and how the various tenses work. Make sure you know when to use arimasu and imasu and how they decline for the past, present, future, positive and negative. You should really get your head round the dictionary and non-dictionary forms of the main verbs. Good dictionaries explain in this in the footnotes as well as Japanese For Busy People. At the back of Book I is a list of the most essential verbs.

Listening was and is my number one problem. Here is my biggest tip which I learnt from my biggest mistake. Please, please, please - buy and listen to the lesson tapes from the very beginning - to be honest, I didn't. Do not just study Japanese from the books. Every day, you need to listen to a Japanese voice speaking in your ear. If you have an i-pod or a walkman, listen to the lesson CDs or tapes on the tube, at work or college. Once or twice a week isn't good enough. This is a language that needs your ear to make some major adjustments to tune in and understand the Japanese.

If you do this for months before the exam, then the practice tapes for the exam will not be the major shock they were for me. I scored abysmally and it took a lot of revision, listening endlessly to the tapes Kazuo leant me, to score 50% in the exam. If it's any consolation, I found the audio loud and clear in the exam room and actually not as frightening as I'd expected. But only because I revised like a demon in the weeks before. A couple of hapless people in the exam room groaned in agony as they tried to understand the aural comprehension. Don't be like them - listen to Japanese every day well in advance. Be aware that the folk who set these exams like to catch you out. If you do the practice papers, you'll see their little tricks. In the exam room, you'll smile to yourself at the red herrings they throw at us to try and fool the "gaijin".

On the day of the exam - revise some key points of difficulty in the morning, but then make yourself relax. You're not about to be tortured and the worst that can happen is that you have to re-take next year.

Take a pencil box to the exam room - I hadn't had one since school days! They don't accept pens - you have to use a pencil. Take a rubber that won't leave dirty great smudges across the multiple choice paper. And take some water - the exam rooms at SOAS are hot as hell.

Your concentration will suffer if you don't keep hydrated. Even the examiner said she felt faint at one point! 　

　

Nobert Fogarasi in December 2000

I passed this exam with over 80% score after 9 months of regular (2x1.5 hrs/week) Japanese study in Japan, and 3 months of specifically preparing for the exam by reviewing the last five years' papers. I used the book "Japanese for Busy People" (JBP I), and I got about 75% through, during the first 9 months. In doing well on the test, studying the prior years' exams was instrumental.
Note, however, that when I first switched from JBP I to doing practice tests, my scores were extremely low. This will likely happen for most people, but do not dispair! With hard work, your score will gradually climb up, as you do more tests. This is particularly true for the grammar questions, where I first scored less than 50%, but week after week of merely doing more tests, my score improved gradually.
As a review you can re-do ones you had practiced on before, and you should make sure that at the end of all your practice you can consistently do > 80% on the previous 5 years' tests. Some tips for each of the sections:
(a)Kanji / Vocabulary: This is the easiest part. You shoul get the list of ~100 kanji which you need to know. This is publically available, and you should make sure you know it well. There will be 2-3 kanji on the test which is not on the list, but can sometimes be guessed, since it includes parts of known kanji. Also, make sure you study the pervious years' exams, there is often repetition in this part of the test.
The vocabulary is more difficult to prepare for, but all the words should be at the level of JBP I. A good strategy is to quickly go over all the questions first, answering the ones you know outright. Then go back, and spend some time thinking over the ones you missed. This way you can allocate your time cleverly.
(b) Listening: The best way to prepare for this is to go over the previous years' tapes in a simulated examination environment. After you have gone through all the questions, go back and carefully listen to the ones that you missed. There were 2 very tricky questions on this test when I took it, where there was an obviuos-looking answer, but if you listen carefully, the answer is actually another one. Watch out for this trick. Overall, you should do well on this part if you had practiced enough using the previous years' tapes.
(c) Grammar: This is the most challenging part (and is also worth double!) I was expecting to ace this part, since I did the most practice for this by far. However, you must also consider that this is the part where they have the most room to mix it up, and that you are most tired by the time this rolls around, so save your energy throughout the day! I employed the strategy of going through quickly once, leaving the ones I didn't know outright. This allowed me to pick up some easy points in the final reading section which others didn't even get to. Important point for this test is to not dispair or feel down if you think you don't know the answers to a stream of questions. The test is long enough that you have room to make mistakes! Keep a cool head and carry on, coming back to the hard one later.
Cheers: Norbert

Soeren in December 2001

Experience with Grade 4 JLPT (Dec 2000)/Studying:
Grammar:
I didn't have time to prepare flashcards for Kanji or Grammar, but I did write down all grammar rules I had learned in order to memorize their structure and then reviewed the workbook exercises before the exam.
Kanji: For memorizing Kanji, especially if one wants to learn all Kanji eventually and therefore needs a consistent approach, I can strongly recommend the book "A Guide to remembering Japanese Characters" by Kenneth G. Henshall. There are many books that supply mnemonics for Kanji, but this is based on actual historic developments and is not only the most consisten, but extremely interesting. I have also Kanji cards from bookstores, heaped them into piles, and reviewed them on weekends, incl. all on- and kun-yumis.
Now I am very happy that I invested that time in the beginning. I noticed that a lot of other people focus on vocabulary/grammar in kana first and get to Kanji later. Probably everyone has their own style. As far as I am concerned, I found it better to focus on Kanji first (after Jap. for Busy people III) up to 1,000 and now that I learn more vocabulary, I can remember new words much better through associations from their Kanjis.
Listening Comprehension:
My suggestion would be to focus on the overall flow of the scene in the first go and eliminate one or two choices already and focus on key words in the repitition, thereby (hopefully) eliminating the rest. It's good to sit in front or ask for loud volume in class because people cough and sneeze in between.
Overall tip:
(i) Keep well track of time. If there are many short questions, then skip questions first if they require too much time and come back later. If you have only few, longer questions/related to longer texts, then don't skip, but comb through with concentration and if necessary a second/third time right away. Then decide and move on.
(ii) in breaks, make an effort to really relax, get some fresh air and have the right food. Don't think about past decisions/answers.

Shaun - Level 4 Examination Candidate December 2001

Every Paper - The exam time is short and it is vital to be able to read the hiragana, katakana and Kanji at reasonable speed to be able to answer the questions in the time allowed.
Practise - it was really useful to go through practise papers and see how the the examiners think.
Revision - I worked hard in the 3 months up to the exam. It was worth it!
Paper 1- I find it difficult to write kanji. However, it is not so difficult to recognize Kanji and I was able to learn more than the required number of kanji for the exam. This was good because by getting a high score in paper 1, I was able to move on to paper 2 feeling confident.
Paper 2 -I found this the most difficult paper. This is because it is necessary to concentrate to clearly understand the question and the whole dialogue. When I lost concentration during a question, I could not answer that question.
Paper 3- Because there are more marks for the questions towards the end it is important to allow time to read these questions carefully. These are the questions that students discuss after the exam -" what was that last question about?" etc.



Oliver Spindler in December 2003

My main recommendation for preparing the JLPT Level 4 is to practice, practice and practice!
Knowledge of basic Japanese is not enough to pass this exam, you need to be very familiar with the kind of questions and be able to answer them within seconds. Therefore you should aim to do as many past papers as you can.
I started in mid October and I did a paper per week up to the exam. The grammar and kanji/vocabulary papers I did as homework and the listening paper I did with Kazuo during the lesson while Kazuo was marking my homework.
We then went over the mistakes that I had made together. My main difficulty with the grammar paper was initially getting the verb ending or particles right and finishing the paper on time was also a challenge.
Kazuo had an amazing way of explaining grammar, so that I rarely made the same mistake twice, became more confident and answered questions more quickly. I could see my scores improving week by week.
As for the kanji and vocabulary, I did not have so many difficulties as I had been taught a lot of it previously. Nevertheless, some practice was definitely necessary to gain familiarity with the specific exam format and finish the papers within the time limit.
In the actual exam I achieved the weakest result in listening. I had practiced a past paper with Kazuo every week, but it would have helped to get additional exposure to Japanese. The vocabulary and sentence structures used are not necessarily very hard but the dialogues are long and read quickly. Some of the questions are also explicitly designed to mislead candidates.

I therefore suggest listening to a Japanese radio station on the web or some language learning cassettes on a regular basis. I would always recommend taking the JLPT Level 4. The prospect of just doing past papers for several months might seem boring but don't worry: Kazuo has an amazing way of providing encouraging, yet realistic, feedback so you can see how you are improving, which is motivating!

Paper 1: 85/100
Paper 2: 62/100
Paper 3: 161/200

Overall: 308/400 - Pass