Postby bclancey » December 6th, 2010 2:07 pm
Thank you for the kind replies.
We write the JLPT yesterday (Dec 5, 2010) and could see that only the correct response waqs required in the final audio segment.
I momentarily lost focus and did not properly hear one of the the questions, which spilled over into the next question. These were the last two. I had no idea what other people were doing because it was only when I concentrated completely that I felt I was understanding the audio and therefore able to answer the question.
Our test group included a large number of children and young teenagers. They were Japanese kids. I guess their parents were working here and that the kids were studying Japanese on their own to maintain their ability to easily go back to school when they return to Japan. However, those kids provided some clues because they could not contain their giggles when a silly response was suggested. But, I could not hear pencils moving and I certainly was not paying any attention to when people seemed to be responding to the answer suggestions.
We ended up concluding the old tests did require that wrong answers be marked to make cheating harder. It may have actually increased the number of wrong answers because it is too easy to be in the wrong row if you are jumping up and down under the stress of an exam.