So I always thought I had decent vocab/kanji (It was my strongest section when doing the N3). The last book I read was by Misumi Kibo, and though I had to use a dictionary for some of it, I didn’t feel like there were any shocking gaps in my vocab comprehension. I also recently completed “Drill and Drill JLPT N2 Vocabulary” without much difficulty (consistently hitting from 75-90% for the exercises), and the Shin Kanzen Master vocab anki deck, on top of the custom decks I’ve made from other material.
Basically I’m saying all this because I felt that I was at least somewhat prepared for the vocab section. But last week I started doing timed past papers, starting from the July 2021 one. Since then I’ve done about five, and it’s been galling because I feel like the vocab tested has been way harder than all practice/drills I’ve done to date, and I’ve been hitting 55-60% for 言語知識, mostly thanks to the grammar section (which is also not fantastic, but at least decent).
I’ve been strongest at the “select reading of the kanji” section but the word selection and suffix/prefix questions have been disastrous. I’ve collected nearly 300 new words from the last 5 papers (both the vocab and reading sections) + misc new words from exercises I’ve done in a panic.
My reading has been consistently fine and my listening is more variable, but still fine. So why am I struggling so much with something else I thought I was okay at? Was I just delusional this whole time about my vocab knowledge?
TDLR; stupidly thought I was prepared for the N2 vocab section, realised now I might not even pass. What can I do with the 1 week I have left?
3 comments
Practice tests are them best use of time so close to the test. Get your timing down and do the best you can with what you have. Going into the test with a calm mind and knowing what you have to do time wise will help your score more than panic cramming.
You can still pass even if you think you are struggling, and if not, experience to focus your study for the next test.
N2 has a lot of news article and school / office type vocab, so perhaps you’re not getting enough of that? Do you feel a pattern to the vocab you don’t know?
Also, if you’re worried about the vocab in the exercises where you need to choose between similar looking words like 緑 and 縁 , you do not need to know the ‘wrong answers’ vocab, they are chosen to trip you up, not because you’re expected to know them.
At this point you shouldn’t try cramming for the stuff you don’t know. Review the stuff you do know hard so that you can take the most points from there (like reading and listening), and just try to scrape by the minimum passing score for that
If you’re gonna focus on another area, grammar is your best shot because the number of items that could appear on the test are far fewer than vocab and kanji