Is BJT hard? What is actually difficult, from someone who scored 406

Why people say you need N1

When I started reading about BJT, I kept seeing two opposite opinions: "you need N1 before you try" and "it is easier than JLPT". Both are partly right, because they talk about different parts of the scale.

Only about 12% of test takers reach J1 or J1+. That is where you really need near-N1 business Japanese. But the visa line, 400, sits at the top of J3, and the average score in FY2025 was 420. Most people who sit BJT are within reach of it.

What was hard for me

• Keigo. I had never studied it properly. BJT uses it everywhere: what to say to a client, how to talk about your own boss, how to write a polite reply. This is the one topic I would start with.
• Kanji and grammar questions. In the reading part, some questions simply ask for the right word or form. If you do not know the kanji, you cannot work it out. I am fairly sure I lost points there.
• Staying focused through the audio. The first two parts together are 75 minutes of listening. For me it felt like one long listening block, and concentration matters as much as knowledge.

What was easier than I expected

• The topics repeat. Orders, deliveries, schedules, meetings, sales figures. After a few practice sets, the same words keep coming back.
• Understanding by ear. My speaking level was around N3, and I understood most of the conversations. If you live or work in Japan, your ears are already trained.
• Finding the answer in long texts. In the reading part you do not need to understand every sentence. I looked for the part that answered the question and moved on.
• No section minimum. In JLPT N2 you can fail with a good total if one section is too low. In BJT everything adds up to one score, so my strong listening covered my weak kanji.

On test day, the room was harder than the questions

No study guide warned me about this part. Some of the real difficulty had nothing to do with Japanese.

• The computer is kinder than paper. I prefer it. On a paper test you are always afraid of marking the wrong box. When I took N4 on paper, I skipped one question, and every answer after it moved one line up on the answer sheet. I did not notice, and it cost me points. On the BJT screen you see one question at a time, the same one you hear, and there is no answer sheet to get out of line.
• The screen was my biggest problem. Test centres use 24-inch monitors set to 1920×1080. That is about 92 pixels per inch, less than half the sharpness of a typical laptop screen. Complex kanji turn blocky, and a long email full of them is tiring to read. For me this was almost harder than the exam itself.
• Noise. Parts 1 and 2 are 75 minutes with headphones on. The sound itself was fine, but my seat was next to a door that kept slamming. I asked the staff for help, and it still did not stop.
• You are not alone with BJT. These centres run many different exams at the same time. The person next to you may be taking something else, clicking silently, while you listen. People come and go. There is less tension than in a hall full of JLPT candidates, and more to distract you.

How I would prepare for it:

1. In the last weeks, study on an ordinary 1080p monitor, or lower the resolution of your own screen. Read long emails and kanji-heavy documents on it until blocky kanji no longer slow you down.
2. Do some listening practice with background noise, so a door or footsteps do not break your focus.
3. At check-in, ask for a seat away from the door. They may not be able to help, but it costs nothing to ask.
4. Try the organiser's computer test demo so the screen layout is not new on the day.

Part by part: where the difficulty is

Who will find BJT harder

• You studied from textbooks and have never used Japanese at work.
• Your reading is much stronger than your listening.
• You need 480 or more. That is in the middle of J2, and your keigo has to be solid.

What I would do in your place

1. Take a full mock exam first, to see where you are on the 0–800 scale.
2. Study keigo as one system: who is raised, who is lowered, inside and outside the company.
3. Practise reading charts while listening. It is a skill of its own.
4. Do not chase every kanji. Learn the business words that keep repeating.