The day has come. After 11 months of studies I am going to sit for my first Japanese Language Proficiency Test. During the course of my revision the feeling that I should have taken the N3 test instead of N2 grew stronger and stronger. I am here now so that is moot. Anyway I got up early to make the "full marks" breakfast. My mother used to make this breakfast whenever my brothers and I are sitting for our school exams. She would cook one sausage and 2 sunny side up eggs and arranged them in to look like "100". It is her way of wishing us all the best in our exams. It is only now that I appreciate the thought that care and concern that she has in everything that has to do with us.
After the very inspiring breakfast, I made my way to the test venue which is at Meijiro University.
I made it there in good time and was slightly taken aback by the number of N2 candidates. The doors opened at 12:00hrs. The test voucher states that the grammar and kanji section test starts at 12:30hrs and ends at 14:30hrs. What perplexed me was that the giving our of the question and answer sheets as well and identification procedure only commenced after 12:30hrs. We only started answering the questions 20 minutes later which I felt was time lost for us. Then I remembered that on the question sheet it was stated that we have 105 minutes to answer the questions. Hahaha. The test voucher should have been more specific, I think!
The instructions were given out no less than 3 times for the benefit of late comers. What got my attention was the part on rule violation. Depending on the severity of the violation you may be issued a yellow card of red card. The invigilator raised the cards as she was explaining the rules and it made her look like a football referee. By the way, at least 2 persons were handed the yellow card by the end of the test.
I came out of the test feeling forlorn; I generally understood the contents of the questions but it was not clear enough to give a confident answer. In other words, I am almost there but still not there. I know that by July next year I will be more than ready to take the test again. Hahahaha!
I am glad I took the test and that it is over. It had it degree of difficulty and my vocabulary was not extensive enough to equip myself to deal with the questions and that is something I will work harder upon from now on. Relieved and wanting to wind down, a few of us met up for dinner.
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