Japanese Power Level Test – Round 4
Directions (*Important Read*)
Reading: Write out the full sentence in kana.
Writing: Fill in the missing blank(s) with the most appropriate characters/word(s)
Listening: Listen to the audio sentence. Then transcribe (write out) the full sentence in either kana or kanji.
Speaking: Listen to the audio sentence. If the blank comes before the audio, say out loud what would result in the audio response. If the blank comes after the audio, say out loud what would be the most natural response to the audio.
Answer Possibilities
I try to limit the realm of possibilities to only a few answers, but since it isn’t multiple choice, there will always be other possibilities. If you come up with a different answer, and want to know if this is also a correct, leave a comment below.
Scoring Yourself
1. Each question is worth 1 base point.
2. When a question has multiple blanks or kanji, each blank or kanji is worth a fraction of a point (ex. .50, .33, .25, .20, etc).
3. In “Writing” and “Listening,” if there is kanji in the blank(s), and you can write them all out, add 0.25 bonus points (give yourself 1.25 points total)
Passing score for Round 4: Jalup Beginner User: 6, Jalup Intermediate User: 6.5, Jalup Advanced User: 7
Highest achievable score w/kanji bonus: 11.25
Passed? Your Japanese level is: 11+
頑張ってください!
Reading
Writing
3.
__日漢字の勉__をして___から__手に__る。
Answer
4.
学校が__まらないから__まり__かない。
Answer
Listening
5.
6.
7.
Speaking
8.
_____________。
9.
____________。
10.
Go to round: 1 ● 2 ● 3 ● 4 ● 5 ● 6 ● 7 ● 8 ● 9 ● 10
Founder of Jalup. iOS Software Engineer. Former attorney, translator, and interpreter. Still watching 月曜から夜ふかし weekly since 2013.
For question 8, I answered 「勿論」. I guess it’s ok, although not in the answer list. If so, I got a score of 10/11.25, meaning my only mistake was question 4 – which brings me to my point: why is the Writing section so difficult in comparison to the others?
Throughout the 4 tests I made 2 mistakes, both in this section, the last one because I couldn’t figure out what was intended. Maybe if there were an english sentence explaining what’s the “idea” of the japanese sentence this section would be more valuable as a testing method.
Using question 4 of this test as an example: I couldn’t figure out つまらない nor あまり, although I’m pretty familiar with both words. I believe this happened because as soon as I saw the ending まらない, I started to think about verbs ending in まる. Similarly, When I saw __まり__かない my brain started searching its files for a compound verb that would fit (i.e. the first verb ending in まる and the second in く)* – which it didn’t find.
If I had been shown a sentence in English (like “I seldom go to school because it’s boring”) my brain would be guided to the right direction, making it possible to test my knowledge of the hidden words.
Well, that’s just my opinion/feedback, that I took the time to write because this is actually my favorite kind of post. I’m hoping for more soon! Thanks
*I guess you could say these actually come from the verbs あまる and つまる, but the truth is most students learn them as adverb and adjective, respectively.
Also, sorry for my English, as I’m not native.
Yes, for 8 勿論 would be fine.
Writing is the most difficult because it tests your ability to not only understand the sentence, but to know what would naturally go inside the sentence. However since, this is open to some interpretation, there are other possible answers.
These quizzes are designed to have some challenge as well. Being able to easily get a perfect score every time would defeat the purpose of them.
An English translation would go against the very principal these decks follow.
Also, I’m not sure if you have used the Jalup decks or not, but as mentioned in the first test of this series, these tests are primarily designed with Jalup deck users in mind. The sentences/audio are all directly taken from them, which means that you will have reviewed them multiple times before, making the test more accurate and everything connect much smoother.
And don’t forget you got a 10. Which is an amazing score!
Now that you put it that way I guess it makes sense. I really did not know/remember the sentences were taken from the decks – having that in mind, this is probably a good way of evaluating the students progress.
Thanks for answering (and for the compliment as well). Keep up the great work ^^
8.75 not bad. To be honest I skipped the writing part sorry about that I really had no clue. Writing is my 弱点。
Not bad at all.
Hopefully you gave the writing section an attempt, as that is what matters. And maybe you’ll do better on the next quiz’s writing section.
It took me quite some time to sit down and do this test, however once started I enjoyed it until the very end ^^.
Happy to hear that. I know you are probably a pro at these decks!
Thank you for these tests. I realized that I needed to focus much more on my listening, and now I’m doing much better.
There’s a clicking noise at the beginning of the audio for 10.
These are taken directly from JALUP beginner deck? I guess that those decks are extreme versions of teaching for the test, heh.
It’s more that people that go through Jalup Beginner become awesome in Japanese.