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。
He passed this exam after he studied for 50 hours with me.

Read his exam diary.