J! L! P! T! 2010! Share your resources, plans, and tips

[StonerPenguin]

I kinda feel bad for starting a whole new thread for this but eh...

Who's taking the JLPT this year? What level? What's your study plan? Have you taken the JLPT before? Any tips?

Maybe this should be in a general discussion thread, but since I'm asking for help I guess I'll post it here.

I'm planning on taking the JLPT 2kyuu this year. I know a lot of people say that anything below level 1 isn't worth taking but I never taken the JLPT before and I'm not confident I can pass it, I'm not really confident I can pass level 2 either. However! I'll study until I am confident

...So now I'm looking at JLPT study materials -- and there's a myriad of them. It'd be really easy to spend a lot of money (well, what's "a lot of money" for a 19-year-old college student, anyway...) on materials.
完全マスター, Unicom's 実力アップ!, 合格できる.... What's the best to buy?

I'm currently thinking about purchasing;
Unicom's 実力アップ!日本語能力試験3級聴解問題
Unicom's 実力アップ!日本語能力試験2級聴解問題
完全マスター3級 日本語能力試験文法問題対策
完全マスター2級 日本語能力試験文法問題対策

This is gonna be about 100 dollars (I'm getting level 3 materials too in case there's basic stuff I don't know not covered in the JLPT 2kyuu books) are these books good? Are there any others I should have?

I plan on finishing Smart.fm's Core 6000 and completing old JLPT levels 4~2 on Read The Kanji | Learn how to read japanese kanji! That should be all I need as far as JLPT vocab and kanji goes, right?

Anyway, feel free to discuss and expresses your opinion on this. One note of advice to others buying JLPT resources; Buy it from a Japanese site. U.S. sellers of of JLPT stuff (or Japanese stuff in general) love to charge people out the ass because they think people aren't smart enough to navigate a Japanese site and do a little Yen to USD conversion...

I'm sure the regulars of this site already know this, I'm just saying this so beginners/intermediates who are considering taking the N5~N3 know

[willgoestocollege]

I think for people who want an idea of what the JLPT test is like they can buy last years exam paper with the questions and correct answers. Comes with two CDs for listening and you can put yourself through a mock exam.

[Akihiko]

Originally Posted by willgoestocollege

I think for people who want an idea of what the JLPT test is like they can buy last years exam paper with the questions and correct answers. Comes with two CDs for listening and you can put yourself through a mock exam.

Kanjidamage.

[Columbine]

Originally Posted by StonerPenguin

I kinda feel bad for starting a whole new thread for this but eh...

Who's taking the JLPT this year? What level? What's your study plan? Have you taken the JLPT before? Any tips?

I ~was~ planning to maybe take 2kyuu in December, but a) everyone says not to bother as the 1kyuu is all anyone is interested in, and b) now i've been accepted onto another full time course and i don't think i'll make my study deadlines now. :/

As for materials, do NOT get suckered into the trap of thinking that 2kyuu is just a case of cramming as many kanji as you can, there's grammar and other things too.
As for resources, I have the 日本語総まとめ問題集 series (because it was recommended by my teacher) but actually I don't like it much. It presents kanji in contextual lumps (ie, all 'hospital' kanji together, all traffic kanji together), and it schedules learning fairly well albeit with rather a lot of optimism on how much a person can learn and retain in a day, but it doesn't give you much of a chance to ~practise~ the things and test yourself on them. This I find especially problematic with the new grammar, as all the practice sections are merely multiple choice, which is FINE for a final exam, but not when I'm still learning things, I want something that allows me think more. I generally like the vocabulary book and the reading comprehension book is fairly reasonable too, and does tie in with the others fairly well.

[StonerPenguin]

Originally Posted by Columbine

As for materials, do NOT get suckered into the trap of thinking that 2kyuu is just a case of cramming as many kanji as you can, there's grammar and other things too.

D: I hadn't thought much about that... Thank you. Ack there's so much to do! I have to train for a fitness test and study for a test similar to the SAT as well! It's a good thing I'm starting relatively early...

Originally Posted by Columbine

I generally like the vocabulary book and the reading comprehension book is fairly reasonable too, and does tie in with the others fairly well.

Hmmm they're not too expensive... maybe I'll get those too.

Gotta watch out though; "Ooh I'll buy these! And that too! OH! But I really need this those ones!" Bam! --next thing you know you're out 200 bucks