If you want a real Japanese test, do what I did over the weekend; a three-day mountain first aid course entirely in Japanese. Of course the Japanese used throughout the course is difficult, there was quite a bit of doctor jargon to contend with (Cerebral Edema anyone?), but the real test came in the written test.

To pass, we needed to get 70% of the questions right. I got 75% so I just passed, but to be honest I don’t think it was because of a lack of knowledge of the content. Rather, it was because they purposely write questions to be confusing to decipher, in what I would consider a rather mean way.

Unfortunately they take the test from you so I don’t have the questions on me, but this is a common theme in Japanese tests. I should have been more cognizant of this when taking the test, but I passed anyway so can’t really complain.

One of the things about testing is whether you’re really testing what you’re meant to be testing. In this case, a lot of the test was your ability to read between the lines and find where the tester was trying to trick you. That is not what it means to test what you’re meant to be testing. Don’t worry though, I let them know this (in a non-confrontational way of course).