JLPT N2 and N1: A Last-30-Days Study Plan for 6 December

In our view a month is not enough to learn N2 or N1 from scratch, and this plan does not pretend it is; we built it for learners already close to their level, where a month can protect a pass. The JLPT fails anyone below 19 out of 60 in any one section, however strong the total, so the last 30 days should be spent where a section is at risk, under real timing. The plan below is our own; the rules and dates it rests on come from jlpt.jp, JEES and MOSAI. ProSyllabus is an independent study site, not part of the Japan Foundation or Japan Educational Exchanges and Services (JEES), which run the JLPT (JEES in Japan, the Japan Foundation overseas with local host institutions). Every rule, mark and date here is quoted or summarised from jlpt.jp, JEES and MOSAI (the host institution in New Delhi), read on 21 October 2026.

Pass marks and times: jlpt.jp and JEES, read 21 Oct 2026.

jlpt.jp states the pass rule plainly: if "there is even one scoring section where the score is below the sectional pass mark, examinees are determined to have failed, no matter how high the total score he/she might have." N2 needs 90 of 180 and N1 needs 100, with at least 19 in each of Language Knowledge, Reading and Listening. That changes what a good last month looks like. A candidate scoring well in grammar but shaky in listening gains more from listening than from more grammar, because the floor fails first.

One caution before you mark practice papers: the JLPT uses scaled scores, not a count of correct answers. In the FAQ's words, "it is possible for an examinee with a high number of correct answers to receive a relatively modest scaled score." So use practice percentages to compare your own sections and your own weeks, not to predict an exact score.

The first sitting is the long one: vocabulary, grammar and reading share one clock. Running out of time on the last reading passages is a reading-score problem even if the cause is slow grammar, which is why the plan practises pace inside that sitting. jlpt.jp also says the test needs no cultural knowledge: "all questions can be answered without cultural knowledge."

For each rehearsal, note three things per section: how many questions you answered, how many you were sure of, and where the time went. Compare the second with the first section by section. A section that has not moved after three weeks of work needs a different method, not more hours of the same one. Sit both rehearsals at the time your own test starts, so that your concentration peaks in the right part of the day, and keep a break between the sittings like the one in your local timetable (in Japan it is 30 minutes for both N1 and N2).

jlpt.jp offers sample questions, with "One sample question is offered for each test item type", and its FAQ says you can download listening audio from them. For more, it points to its Official Practice Workbooks, which it says contain questions "selected from among those used in tests since the 2010 revision". Past papers as such are not released: "The exact same test questions of every exam are not published." jlpt.jp's site policy allows reproduction "for personal use such as individual study". It also notes that some N1 and N2 grammar and reading samples and all the listening audio files contain third-party works, whose reprint and reproduction is prohibited without permission outside the exceptions in that policy.

The first rehearsal decides where weeks 2 and 3 go. These are our rules of thumb, not jlpt.jp's; the only official parts are the pass marks they protect. Because practice percentages are not scaled scores, judge "at risk" by your own sections against each other.