So first and foremost, ranking proficiency is probably close to impossible to do because you're fitting something with as large of a scope as language into arbitrary units, and that's precisely my problem with using the JLPT system to describe someone's proficiency.
Someone's JLPT score doesn't really tell me about their proficiency in the language. For example, I've talked to people who have passed the N1, but they're not proficient when it comes to understanding the spoken language, only things they've studied for on the JLPT.
This next point is probably just a me thing, but I never really focused on the JLPT when studying Japanese so whenever someone mentions the level that a vocab word or grammar point is classified as, it always confuses me how these classifications came about in the first place, like is it ranked by frequency in everyday Japanese? Fair enough if it is.
But that leads me to my main point. Surely, there is a better way to class comprehension? It probably wouldn't be entirely 100% accurate since comprehension varies between domains and it is hard to classify, but the JLPT as a classification system doesn't tell me much about people's skills in the language. Perhaps a classification that is more focused on comprehension rather than testing.
by TSComicron