I put myself to the test today and I buggered it up. December 2nd was the test date of the annual Japanese Language Proficiency Test. There are four levels – one being the highest – and I have only ever taken one of the tests before, level three and few years ago. This time I challenged myself to level two. The test site was at Saitama University, just two trains and five stops from my station. It was a nice day so I walked to the university instead of taking the bus.

I don’t mind tests. I like to see how much I know and find out where I stand at what level. On the level three test I scored 82% if I remember correctly. For practice I bought a copy of a book with last year’s level one and two tests and attempted to complete level two at home. Based on my score at home I figured I could get about 75% on the vocabulary part and reading comprehension. I will admit though that I spent a long time on the reading comprehension part, possibly longer than the allotted time. I didn’t do the listening test for practice.

The walk to the university was nice put frustrating at times. The sidewalk was narrow and little knots of Chinese, Korea and Indonesian people often blocked the way as they strolled casually to the university. I squeaked past each knot and listened for the language being spoken and was reminded how the majority of the foreigners in Japan are Asian. I had to scuttle around two young Chinese guys who were dressed to look cool and walking very slowly while puffing on cigarettes. I was not young enough to look that cool, nor to walk that slowly.

Arriving at the university I was reminded why I don’t like such places. Clusters of friends gathered and chatted in various tongues, laughing and enjoying themselves. I was always a loner at school from high school on and never felt comfortable during my brief stint in college. I would rather retreat to the library and hide out behind a pile of geology and photography books. Pleasantly distracting, however, were the colourful leaves. Autumn had finally come to Saitama. I noted how it was already two months since I first saw autumn leaves this year on the top of a mountain in northern Fukushima Prefecture.

I realized I had no idea where I was to go and though I held a big clue in my hand I failed to notice it – on my test voucher was printed the building and classroom in which I would take the test. I found a test level two room and asked a young woman at the door if I should sit in there. She looked at my test voucher and took me downstairs to young fellow who could direct me to the right place. He turned out to be a student from China and as he walked me to the building I found out he was from Dalian in North Eastern China. His grandparents were living in Canada he told me but he couldn’t remember where. I told him I knew where Dalian was and had been to China twice. He acted impressed a little. I just wanted him to know that just because I was Caucasian I wasn’t a complete dimwit when it came to Chinese geography.

The first part of the test was the vocabulary part. As expected there were words I didn’t know. Sometimes I could fake it though. There were Kanji (Chinese pictographs) for which I had to select the correct reading in Hiragana (Japanese syllabry); words in Hiragana for which I had to chose the right Kanji; fill in the blanks questions; and find the correct definition questions. Often Kanji with the same main components have the same way of reading them so even when I didn’t know a word I could guess by the components of the Kanji, or some Kanji I knew from other compound words and could guess the correct reading. But sometimes I just didn’t know and had to pull a guess out of the blue.

The listening test was mostly easy. When I took level three, someone’s alarm had gone off during that test. That was a huge distraction and I fell behind two questions because of it. This time there was no disturbance. I only missed a couple of words and had to guess twice. Still, I quite possibly made a few more mistakes. That’s just how I am.

For lunch I discovered an on-campus convenience store, which was so crowded with foreigners and the shelves half stripped and the queue for the counter so long I decided to clear out. I found a 7/11 a short distance a way which was almost as crowded but at least I found something desirable to eat. Then I went back to the campus and tried to find a place to eat where nuggets of foreigners weren’t chattering away exuberantly. Everyone had someone to talk to, it seemed. If people weren’t talking with friends they were blabbering on their cell phones. I heard French, Portuguese, and a cornucopia of English accents mixed in with the predominantly Chinese language atmosphere. One Chinese guy was speaking with such stressed pronunciation I had to wonder if I wasn’t hearing a dialect from somewhere.

I returned to the classroom with fifteen minutes to spare and plunked myself down in my seat, taking out a book to read. At last the instructions were given again (for the third time in case anyone forgot the first two times), the test papers were handed out and the test commenced. I knew that the comprehension test had some easy parts and I tried to flip to them first. But for question numbers all I saw was “Part I: 1-7; Part II: 1-3; Part III: 1-3,” and so on. My mark sheet had questions 1 to 56. If I found the easier part I would have to count all the questions in each part in order to begin marking answers in the correct spot. Why couldn’t they just be marked 1 to 56 like on the vocabulary and listening tests? Not wanting to waste time I just decided to start from the beginning.

The first part was a page-long essay about the purpose of educating ourselves. I understood the basic idea of the essay but I couldn’t figure out the details enough to answer the questions. I read and re-read. My eyes became heavy. I started dreaming with my eyes open that I was reading something else totally unrelated. I started dreaming of answers that weren’t on the test. I was fading out and wasting time. I couldn’t afford to lose that time dozing here. I tried my best to concentrate but I was still not able to confidently choose the correct answer. I went on to the next part, a series of paragraphs with three questions for each passage. Then paragraphs with only one question. I had ten minutes left and was only at question 18!

Then I found the easy part – fill in the blank for a list of 20 questions. Had I started here first I could have answered maybe thirty questions or more by now instead of only 18, most of which I guessed at. I hurried. I skim read and whatever answer popped into my head first was the one I selected. If I didn’t know I just marked anything. I reached question 32, marked the answer sheet and the test was over. Good gravy! I still had 24 questions unmarked!

Well, what could I do? I simply couldn’t stay awake after lunch. I couldn’t concentrate enough on reading. And there were still many words I couldn’t read. From the results of this test I can only say that the first two parts will accurately indicate my level. The third part with 24 questions unanswered and the rest half guessed at through my sleepy haze will not give a true indication of my comprehension ability. But I do need to work on reading more.

I was relieved to get out of that university campus and disappear back into the crowd of shoppers once I reached Omiya Station. But crowds of shoppers, plodding like overfed cattle trying to decide where next to graze, quickly got tiresome too. I dodged as many as I could, shopped what I needed to get and went back to use the office computer where I could hide away safely behind a computer screen.