I feel like this kind of a silly thing to ask but it’s been driving me nuts for a week and I can’t find any answers online. I have read that the format for the Listening section of the JLPT is:
\-A brief description of what the audio will be (a male manager is talking to a female employee, etc.) and then the question that you must answer
\-Enough time to read the answers before the audio (for the questions that have printed answers)
\-The full audio, and then the question repeated
But I have no idea what “enough time” means for me. I’ve been practicing with these online listening practice tests on Youtube where there doesn’t seem to be any time to read the answers at all. There’s like a pause of 2.5 seconds before the full audio is played. I’m thinking, that can’t be the amount of time we’re given. But is it more like 5 seconds? 10 seconds? I imagine that being able to read through the answers is crucial to the note taking strategy because it introduces the key words and actions you would want to look out for in the audio.
I feel like I’ve been underperforming on a lot of the practice tests on Youtube because I’ve been trying to complete them in real time without pausing, so this means that in order to read the answer options I try to skim them either during the description time, or during the audio itself. It will make me lose focus on what I need to be paying attention to, or miss things during the audio. I feel like I should be pausing to let myself read the answers like how people describe the test. But there’s a huge difference between a 5 second, 10 second, or even a 15 second pause, and I don’t want to be blindsided by a quicker time than anticipated on the real test.
If you have taken the test before, do you remember about how long you were given between the stated question and the audio itself? Or if you can’t remember a ballpark time, how did you feel? Rushed, or like you had time to read through each possible answer fully? More than enough time?
Thank you for humoring me–I know it’s not really that deep.
by roomtower
