Japanese Placement Test

Last week, I took the dreaded Japanese Placement Test.

This is the map of the two tracks (Regular and Intensive) and what they equate to on each other's route. If you don't understand it at all, don't even worry about it.

I didn't bother to study, and to be honest, I don't think it would have made any difference.

We arrived at Sophia on Thursday morning in the pouring rain, marking approximately the eight millionth day so far that it has been raining. A good setting for what was about to go down.

Before we could take the test, we had to choose whether we were going to stick with the Regular track or the Intensive track, because that decided what room we would be in. In the days prior, we had been warned time and time again (occasionally by people in our group) not to take Intensive, because it was a lot of work. "Take Regular," they said, "so you can enjoy Japan."

This is the Intensive Program summary slide. TL;DR - "Don't take this if you want to enjoy your life."

So obviously, I signed up for Intensive, because I do not want to enjoy my life.

No, but seriously, my entire purpose here is to become fluent in the language--not taking Intensive would be a disservice to my own goals.

In any case, I went in, marked off "Intensive" on the test sheet, and got ready to take the test. It had 3 parts: first, conjugation; second, multiple choice (kanji, grammar, & reading); and third, a short composition. The conjugation section was easy enough, and the composition was also pretty easy, except for the fact that the prompt (there were 3, and I answered the mid-range one) was an extremely basic question, and we had to somehow come up with at least 10 sentences to answer what only needed 2 at most.

The multiple choice section was broken into three parts: basic, intermediate, and advanced. In the basic section, you had to identify the correct reading of certain kanji words, as well as a grammar section where you had to identify the right structure to go into a blank part of a sentence. The basic section was incredibly easy. The intermediate section had the same contents as the basic section, with the addition of a handful of reading passages for which we had to answer questions regarding the contents. The intermediate section was also rather easy, until I got to the passages, which I was not terribly confident about. I understood their meaning well enough, but I couldn't necessarily answer the questions about them. The moment I flipped to the advanced section, I could only read 1 of the kanji on the first page, so I stopped there.

After I finished the test, I went out to Akihabara with some friends, which I will write about later.

We received our results on Monday at 10:00 AM. During one of the presentations about language courses, the professor had told me that I would probably get into Intensive 2, and maybe Intensive 3 if I was really, really good at kanji. The day after I finished the test, I realized that I had messed up on a column of the conjugation section--the most basic part of the test. (I think I did, at any rate. I will never know for sure.) Once that dawned on me, I resigned myself to the fact that I would be in Intensive 2. Not horrible, but I wanted to be able to take Intensive 4 next semester. Anyway.

The results were posted in a giant PDF file with our student IDs and our levels.

I scrolled.

And I scrolled some more.

And finally, I got to my ID.

And...

DO MY EYES DECEIVE ME?!?!?

I got into Intensive 3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The CIEE group chat immediately bade me farewell, because I was not going to survive this class. It looks like I ended up in the highest initial class level out of everyone (one person in my group tested into Intensive 2 last semester and thus is in Intensive 3 this semester), but I don't know that for a fact.

I'm half excited that I landed in what I think is my exact level, and half terrified because I am going to die tomorrow morning. All I ask is that my professors show mercy on the first day of class.

My schedule is as follows:

I get to leave early! Nice!

• Intensive Japanese 3 (Every Day)
• Survey of Japanese Art 1 (Monday & Thursday)
• Studies in Modern Japanese Art History (Tuesday & Friday)

I'm going to go and enjoy the last few hours of my freedom relaxing, but I will try to write up a post on everything I did during orientation over the weekend.