I really want to pass 英検一級 for future job opportunities and for studying abroad when I’m older.
At the moment, I’m not very sure how to study to pass the test. If any of you have passed it, do you have any tips? If so, do you mind sharing them?
Thank you!
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Half of what’s on it isn’t real English. “Interesting for me” and “All right” are considered correct on that test. I’m not sure any country outside of Japan approves of it.
Edit: just wanted to add, you may find TOEIC more useful. I believe that one is international.
Take the TOEIC instead. It is much more useful internationally and businesses in Japan will respect a TOEIC score as much as or more than eiken.
My wife passed Eiken 1 earlier this year. She has 10 years of experience living in America, but she’s not particularly studious. Her general advice is
1. Read and watch as much native English content as you can. Spend about half of that time “studying” the content intensively. Seek to understand every sentence. Look up unknown words. Start logging words through a Spaced Repetition System like Anki. Spend the other half of your time watching/reading/listening to content “freely”. Meaning, still watch with the intent of trying to grasp what’s being said, but don’t spend time decoding every sentence and looking up every word.
2. Be realistic about the time commitment. Depending on your current level, you might need to put in 1000+ hours and learn 2-3000+ words. Pace yourself, and be diligent about logging “x” number of hours each day.
3. Make it fun. Immerse yourself in content that you enjoy, and try to challenge yourself with content that is just outside of your comfort zone. Make sure you capture a wide range of topics too.
4. Read up on actual test taking strategies. (e.g. for the reading section – skimming/scanning rather than reading, read questions first, etc)
If you have follow up questions, please feel free to PM me.
My son was born in the UK and lived there until he was 7.
He passed 準２級 at age 11 basically from watching YouTube. I’m assuming L1 is harder, but….
If I were you, I’d go to a bookstore and check out the 英検 books. The books have explanations, tips, practice exams, and answers. If you’re a student, the English teachers at your school will also have resources and can give you advice. They can also help you prepare for the speaking test if you pass the first stage.
If you pass the first stage (vocabulary, reading, listening, and writing,) the second stage (speaking) is about a month later. For level 1, even some returnees don’t pass the first time because the topics you can choose from to speak about are not usually topics that 12-18 year olds think or care about. It’s a good idea to have general knowledge of global and national issues, and be able to form an opinion about one topic from a list of 5 and discuss it clearly for a few minutes. You can see the past topics published in Eiken practice books. But focus on the 1st stage first 🙂
For studying abroad, try the TOEFL, IELTS, or TOEIC tests instead
I’d go for TOEIC instead, honestly.
I would take the practice tests on the Eiken website to get a feel for the test and determine if it’s within your league. When I took it, I was familiarizing myself with the format, the types of questions etc. before taking the exam. Find your weak points and work on those.
At the interview, my speech was completely rubbish but I pretended like it was legit and beamed confidence to get me through! Faking it works as long as your pronunciation is great.
I used to teach it to kids but the vocabulary was really difficult even for a native speaker like me! I would advise you to just get the books with past tests and just get used to the format of the test.