Pass! 139/180. And I was so worried I'd failed… I'm especially surprised that my highest score was in listening and lowest in grammar/vocab, I would have predicted the opposite. (By the way, it's scaled so the percentage score is next to meaningless.)
Congratulations! I share your joy in passing and admire you for being one of the apparently small group of people who challenge a level appropriate to their skills. (When I used to teach English I learned through students taking the 英検 that there was greater prestige and bragging rights associated with
failing a higher level than they had a snowball's chance in hell of passing than with
passing a lower level. I am convinced the JLPT suffers the same phenomenon in spades, accounting for the dismal pass percentages).
I realize the percentage score is meaningless in terms of knowing the raw score, but it is easier to wrap my mind around 91.6% than 165/180.
To your earlier point, I don't understand why you say you lost respect for it because "anyone could pass it"
Partly due to a lifelong belief that everybody can do anything I can do and usually do it better.
My formal Japanese learning consisted of flunking a college class offered aboard my ship when I was in the Navy, and passing the three semesters that were available when I briefly attended university later. I finished studying the sophomore textbook on my own and that is pretty much the full extent of the effort I have put into learning Japanese....not a whole lot. That plus a few years practical experience in Japan were enough to get me a pass on the old Level 2 in 1996 (went with a coworker who wanted company for her misery in case she failed it for the third time, only reason I even took it).
For the last 19 years since then, though, I was very firmly and very sincerely of the opinion that there was no way I could ever pass N1 unless I spent a lot of time studying for it. I have zero need for the N1 in real life, didn't want to study for it, and put off taking it. Last year I decided it would make a nice extra piece of paper to submit with my citizenship paperwork so I registered to take the test. I didn't study or prepare for it. I did buy some study books which I never got around to using, and which I'm now going to donate to the library or something. At any rate, due to my lack of education and preparation I didn't expect to do well. In fact, I was sufficiently concerned I would fail the test that I waited quite a while to confess in
@Davey 's thread that I was going to take it. I didn't want to have to come back later and admit I had failed.
I know very well my own limitations and shortcomings in regard to the Japanese language and that fit very well with a perception in my mind of what is appropriate for a level like 2 (or N2). I similarly had a perception that people who have put lots of time and energy into learning Japanese, typically with better facilities and/or materials than I had, must have a far superior knowledge and command of Japanese than I did. "N1>N2...Q.E.D." after all. So the only two possible outcomes, as I mentioned in the other thread, are that I would fail and lose regard for myself (since after all these years I have no excuse for not having learned) or I would pass and lose regard for the value of N1 (since if I can pass it with all my defects then there must be a degree of bogosity to the test).
Adding further to the bogosity of the system and further confirming it in my mind are the laughably low scores required to pass the tests....especially the ability to pass the while thing so long as one clears 19/60 on each section. The whole JLPT system is just the "soft bigotry of low expectations" writ large and on parade. Its going to come across as false modesty or humblebragging but it isn't....I know from decades of daily life and working and living in a real-world "AJATT" environment that my Japanese skills are sorely lacking in many ways. Just the fact that I could
pass the highest level test they have set up for us shows me that it is a sham. That with my many faults I not only passed it but placed in probably the 97th or 98th percentile just further drives the point home with me that the whole thing is a mockery and probably does more to
stifle Japanese learning than it does to promote it. People tailor their studies to pass the tests and, statistics reveal, generally come up short. People should study/practice to develop their real-world skills irrespective of what some list or guide tells them will be on the test; I suspect they would see better results.
I'm glad to finally have the unfinished business of having been struck at Level 2 for two decades behind me now, but passing N1 has done zero to give me any sort of boost or sense of accomplishment. If anything, it has sort of irked me. Not only was that all they expected gaijins could do....they only expect gaijins to do a little better than
half of that to give them a passing grade. I'm not knocking the accomplishments or belittling the efforts of any people who are still studying and working their way up the rungs of the JLPT ladder. My point is just that when you finally do get to the top of it I don't see how anyone could help being disappointed that apparently this (
half of this!) is all that is expected of them. That's why I take more satisfaction and pride in having passed Level 4 of the 日本語検定 than I do of having placed in the top 2 or 3% of those who took N1....with three more levels to challenge I know at least they have faith I have the potential to improve. I never felt inspired to study by or for the JLPT, but I am going to work toward trying higher levels of the 日本語検定 and 漢字検定 and largely due to my disillusionment with the JLPT.
