That's done.
I haven't been writing much lately, mostly because I've been absorbed in getting this Japanese into my head for the JLPT which I wrote today with Joyce and Anthony. Uh... not prepared would be the best way to summarize my state going into the exam. Obviously, I know I didn't study enough 1) because I couldn't make up my mind about taking it or not, and 2) because I got distracted so many MANY times while studying.
Luckily, the thing I'm grateful for is that ultimately, I'm doing this for my own benefit. If I fail, it's because I didn't work hard enough and I don't think it'll crush me because looking back on it, the amount of times I was stumped because of a question were too many to count. If I pass, I'll be really surprised. The listening section was easy; I'm sure I only got a few incorrect but that's because the first 2-3, I was trying to figure out the best way to write notes and find the answer and there was one where I missed the first part, so I didn't even know which answer fit. Otherwise, bacchiri.
The reading, grammar and kanji... was a nightmare. The kanji was bad. I don't think I knew any of them and I really just guessed based on process of elimination. Some I guessed because I couldn't reason out any of the choices. The grammar wasn't too bad. Thank goodness at least I focused on that when I was studying so it wasn't like "I have never seen this grammar before." Reading... was awful. It wasn't even the reading but the QUESTIONS that were awful. I think every passage that I read, I could understand the gist of it, which was great because they only put furigana on obscure kanji. The questions for the passages, though... oh my goodness. I didn't even understand the choices, so I had to muddle my way through. In the end, I literally sped-read the last 2 passages, answered maybe 5 questions (partially by guessing) and left the last 3 because I ran out of time.
The only time I ever enjoyed being in that room was listening. Hearing people talk about it afterwards is amazing. It's sad to see how people's listening skills don't match up with their otherwise high-level ability to read and understand Japanese. Lots of people picked the trick answers. I told Anthony this, but being fluent in English is a bonus here because it made note-taking SO easy. I think I basically wrote down every point of conversations and I didn't get stuck unless I actually hadn't heard something. This dude sitting in front of me was furiously filling in his sheet when it was time's up and the female proctor had already begun collecting pages. She told him to stop twice, then gave him a yellow card. AT THE END OF THE EXAM, NO LESS. Wow. Just... wow.
All kinds of people. Seriously. That was a good experience, though. Now I know that I can probably do 2kyuu, but I definitely need to study more kanji.
Luckily, the thing I'm grateful for is that ultimately, I'm doing this for my own benefit. If I fail, it's because I didn't work hard enough and I don't think it'll crush me because looking back on it, the amount of times I was stumped because of a question were too many to count. If I pass, I'll be really surprised. The listening section was easy; I'm sure I only got a few incorrect but that's because the first 2-3, I was trying to figure out the best way to write notes and find the answer and there was one where I missed the first part, so I didn't even know which answer fit. Otherwise, bacchiri.
The reading, grammar and kanji... was a nightmare. The kanji was bad. I don't think I knew any of them and I really just guessed based on process of elimination. Some I guessed because I couldn't reason out any of the choices. The grammar wasn't too bad. Thank goodness at least I focused on that when I was studying so it wasn't like "I have never seen this grammar before." Reading... was awful. It wasn't even the reading but the QUESTIONS that were awful. I think every passage that I read, I could understand the gist of it, which was great because they only put furigana on obscure kanji. The questions for the passages, though... oh my goodness. I didn't even understand the choices, so I had to muddle my way through. In the end, I literally sped-read the last 2 passages, answered maybe 5 questions (partially by guessing) and left the last 3 because I ran out of time.
The only time I ever enjoyed being in that room was listening. Hearing people talk about it afterwards is amazing. It's sad to see how people's listening skills don't match up with their otherwise high-level ability to read and understand Japanese. Lots of people picked the trick answers. I told Anthony this, but being fluent in English is a bonus here because it made note-taking SO easy. I think I basically wrote down every point of conversations and I didn't get stuck unless I actually hadn't heard something. This dude sitting in front of me was furiously filling in his sheet when it was time's up and the female proctor had already begun collecting pages. She told him to stop twice, then gave him a yellow card. AT THE END OF THE EXAM, NO LESS. Wow. Just... wow.
All kinds of people. Seriously. That was a good experience, though. Now I know that I can probably do 2kyuu, but I definitely need to study more kanji.