hello I'm a current undergraduate student looking to do a masters in Japan in Japanese and I just failed N1 for the second time. honestly it's heart breaking. for background to this I passed N2 with a very high score around 3 years ago and have lived in Japan for one year since then as well (I currently live abroad now however) and my hobby and my passion is Japanese literature particularly classical literature so anything written in the 平安時代 as well as 近代文学 like 夏目漱石、谷崎潤一郎、芥川龍之介賞 etc. I study extremely hard as well every day consistently especially when going for JLPT. I go through all the source material books try to remember the vocab and the grammar to the best of my ability and I can reasonably say that my Japanese is good enough to pass the test. Whether it be uni work or when I take a practice test I pass. but not just pass, pass convincingly. Moreover although not being from a background where I was brought up with 漢字 I have a great passion for it as one of my goals is to some day (a very long time into the future) is to pass 漢検1級. yet I found although it's only been twice, every time I take N1 I fail. by no means am I failing by huge margins but I just feel so defeated by it. If I didn't need N1 for my masters application which I want to do so so badly as well as social pressures such as everyone around me goes if anyone can do it you can I wouldn't take it. even my teachers are like I'll help you with the application because you'll breeze through N1 and I just don't know how to feel. I'm just so disappointed, so tired but I love Japanese so much. final anecdote I'll add that I am very very bad at test taking, to the point where this time I looked up test techniques but even those kinda didn't work. also I have very severe anxiety so test taking and waiting for the test results (that month) is like torture. I'm trying really hard to find a positive mindset and try and fix something that's probably just evidently wrong but it's like I just don't want to take the test again it's so restricting to my Japanese but at the same time I want to go and do a masters so so much. if anyone has some tips for me it would be most definitely appreciated. I would apply for the next round but that'll make it 3 in a row with I don't know if I can handle mentally.
by Arcon356