And I wonder if anyone else feels this way? I took the N2 exam at San Francisco State University earlier this month. Now, I’d heard one of the reasons they increased the price of the exam to $100 was because of trouble finding test proctors, etc… I imagine demand is also a reason.
Naturally, all of the proctors were native speakers of Japanese. I initially thought it was because the entire exam would be in Japanese, including the instructions before starting the test. But all of the instructions were read out loud in English.
Upon finishing the test I started questioning why I needed to spend so much money to fly out to a neighboring state and book a hotel for a night if it was going to ultimately be instructed in English anyways? Like, how is that any different than taking the exam on the computer?
If the exam was digitized they could save money on proctors, it could be hosted at literally any capable testing center in the US, it could be done more than once a year, examinees could save a lot of money, etc…. I see literally no downside to digitizing this exam.
It just doesn’t make sense to me.
8 comments
Send this message by fax to their headoffice in Tokyo please
The idea is probably if you take it on your computer sitting at home, you can just have some already fluent person take it for you.
Not to say you can’t cheat in person, but that requires more effort and coordination. And usually people who cheat are cheating to be lazy, and if it requires effort and coordination, there is a bias towards them being less interested.
Also taking it there puts everyone on even footing in terms of what resources are available to you.
I’m assuming why they don’t do that is because they don’t want all the questions from the test leaking online. I use those testing centers to take professional certifications and there is a sizable black market that has formed around selling answer banks to them online.
I think there’s a good chance the move to an ETS-style administration is in the works, but there’s a very good chance that the test is controlled from inside a glacier by dinosaurs. It might take a while.
I don’t see why not. But Japan usually lags technically wise.
EVEN the LSAT (law school) and MCAT (med school) tests are digitized. If they digitized the LAW SCHOOL TEST and MED SCHOOL TEST, then the JLPT could be digital too. The LSAT and MCAT are more prestigious than the JLPT.
It has to do with cheating.
That’s japan for ya 🙂 they still use fax machines, don’t like changing routines, and i think they recently got rid of using floppy disks? Jlpt would be on the bottom of the list for digitizing anything lol
There’s a different Japanese test called the BJT that _is_ digitized and conducted at testing centers. It even is recognized by Japan immigration for the same special points the higher level JLPT certs are.
https://www.kanken.or.jp/bjt/english/