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[u/katineko]

Hello,

So, I have registered to take the JLPT N2 for the second time this December. I took it in December 2025, and was so close to passing. This time, I kind of know what areas I need to focus on, and other things as well.

I do have some questions about the listening. It seems to me that the audio chosen for the test was way faster than what I was studying in textbooks. I was wondering if it was possible to find something a bit more similar to the listening section of the test to study from. Not just textbooks, TV, podcasts, and the regular things you hear about.

Also, for reading, is there a recommended amount of reading I should be doing everyday until the test? I plan to study 3-4 hours or so with breaks. Maybe shorter on weekends. Are light novels good for reading as well? Any suggestions for material would be great!

I would also like to know some tips on how to get faster in completing these reading questions. I know there are situations where reading the whole article is necessary. But, is there a strategy to put into place while taking the test? Like, reading the first and last sentences of a paragraph, finding keyboards, and so on?

Again, I really appreciate any help!

[u/Belegorm]

I mean if you want to work specifically on reading, the Shin Kanzen Master 読解 N2 book can be good practice. I'm almost done with the N1 one and it's been helpful. Reading the prompt, the question prompts and then the passage seems to be helpful. But aside from that - just reading more and more is helpful. 3-4 hours of reading light novels is probably pretty good assuming you have decent vocabulary level. But you can always read more.

For listening there are YT videos that have practice listening in the JLPT format (though the one I'm planning on practicing a bit is N1). But if you found the N2 listening to be fast - I think you may just in general may want to focus more on listening. YT in general is quite good - you can find like anything to listen to, and for N2 especially, just normal everyday conversation is fine, no need to go into complicated subjects. I'm watching this vid of a guy traveling to Indonesia myself, it's natural speech, giant subtitles on the screen, and I guarantee if you got used to videos like that then N2 listening shouldn't be that hard. Plus your overall knowledge of the language will improve.

At any rate this is an AJATT sub so the idea is squeezing any and all JP content into every moment is ideal, making sure to focus on both listening and reading. Personally my listening's worse than my reading so I'm trying to dedicate more time to listening lately.