nerves
I can't believe the JLPT is in a week.
Being home was kind of surreal, because I realized that while I've spent all of this time studying for the JLPT, none of my friends have. They've been off doing things that were completely different. And I'm not sure that what I've been doing has been worthwhile. My job sucks, I'm not going to grad school, and the big plan for escape is to apply to the JET program, which I probably won't get into this year.
But the bigger issue is the test. On the one hand, I only need 60% to pass this exam. Last year, I only practiced kanji and got 40%. Last year, I gave up and guessed randomly on a lot of the last section because I thought you needed to pass all three sections to pass the exam. Surely after going over all of the vocab and grammar I did, I can do better right?
And then the doubt creeps in. For one thing, percentage increases aren't linear. I need to do particularly well on section 1 and 3 to compensate for my lack of listening comprehension skills. If I got the same score as I got last year on listening, then I'm going to have to get more like 70% on the other sections. On last year's exam, I got 50% and 35% respectively. That's a pretty big jump. It's not linear. I'd imagine going from "less than half" to "more than half" is pretty easy, but decreasing error from there is more difficult when talking about percentages. I'm also not sure I have the stamina to do well in a 4 hour long Japanese exam.
And another thing is that if I fail it this time, again, I'll have spent the past 8 months studying for a test I didn't even pass. How can I expect to do well on the LSATs or the GRE if I can't even pass this? And if I fail it, wouldn't it be a pretty big waste?
And really, if I fail this exam AND I don't get into JET, isn't that a sign that I should really be studying German?
Also, this would be a lot less nerve-recking if they gave the exam more than once a year -_-. I think they're starting to in 2010, but only in select countries, which does not include the US. -_-. ::shakes fist::
Being home was kind of surreal, because I realized that while I've spent all of this time studying for the JLPT, none of my friends have. They've been off doing things that were completely different. And I'm not sure that what I've been doing has been worthwhile. My job sucks, I'm not going to grad school, and the big plan for escape is to apply to the JET program, which I probably won't get into this year.
But the bigger issue is the test. On the one hand, I only need 60% to pass this exam. Last year, I only practiced kanji and got 40%. Last year, I gave up and guessed randomly on a lot of the last section because I thought you needed to pass all three sections to pass the exam. Surely after going over all of the vocab and grammar I did, I can do better right?
And then the doubt creeps in. For one thing, percentage increases aren't linear. I need to do particularly well on section 1 and 3 to compensate for my lack of listening comprehension skills. If I got the same score as I got last year on listening, then I'm going to have to get more like 70% on the other sections. On last year's exam, I got 50% and 35% respectively. That's a pretty big jump. It's not linear. I'd imagine going from "less than half" to "more than half" is pretty easy, but decreasing error from there is more difficult when talking about percentages. I'm also not sure I have the stamina to do well in a 4 hour long Japanese exam.
And another thing is that if I fail it this time, again, I'll have spent the past 8 months studying for a test I didn't even pass. How can I expect to do well on the LSATs or the GRE if I can't even pass this? And if I fail it, wouldn't it be a pretty big waste?
And really, if I fail this exam AND I don't get into JET, isn't that a sign that I should really be studying German?
Also, this would be a lot less nerve-recking if they gave the exam more than once a year -_-. I think they're starting to in 2010, but only in select countries, which does not include the US. -_-. ::shakes fist::