BJT提分班How to Prepare for the BJT — A Complete 90-Day Study Plan
1. First, accept this: JLPT N1 does not equal a high BJT score
This is the first trap nearly every learner falls into.
The JLPT asks whether you understand Japanese. The BJT asks whether you can work in Japanese inside a Japanese company. Different underlying skills, and the scores don't convert.
How harsh is the reality? N1 holders taking the BJT for the first time land at J3, sometimes J4, routinely. Their Japanese isn't weak. The two papers are simply asking different questions. N1 asks whether the grammar is correct; the BJT asks whether saying this here will cause a problem.
So step one is discarding "I have N1, this shouldn't be hard" and planning as if from zero.
2. What the exam actually tests
Two blocks, 800 points total, weighted heavily toward listening:
Listening (Parts 1 and 2)
- 場面把握 (bamen haaku) — match an image to a spoken description. The most winnable points.
- 発言聴解 (hatsugen chōkai) — what to say in a given situation. Tests keigo and social position.
- 総合聴解 (sōgō chōkai) — dialogue comprehension, typically "what happens next."
Listening-reading and reading (Part 3)
- 資料聴読解 (shiryō chōdokkai) — listen while reading a chart.
- 総合聴読解 (sōgō chōdokkai) — documents plus dialogue. The heaviest information load on the exam.
- 読解 (dokkai) — long passages, charts, business documents.
Score bands: J1 (600+), J2 (530–599), J3 (420–529), J4 (320–419). Japanese employers commonly set J2 as a hiring threshold; overseas postings and management roles typically want J1.
3. Splitting the 90 days
Days 1–30: foundation
Thirty fixed minutes of vocabulary daily, grouped by situation rather than alphabetically. In parallel, one full listening set every day — not for comprehension, but to let your ears adjust to the speed and to the density of business terminology.
The goal this month isn't a score. It's curing the panic reflex when Japanese starts playing.
Days 31–60: attack by question type
One format at a time. Start with 場面把握 (bamen haaku) and 資料聴読解 (shiryō chōdokkai) — the most pattern-bound and the fastest to improve. After every item, read the explanation and determine whether you failed to hear it or heard it and misread it. Those two failures have completely different fixes.
Begin the 建前 (tatemae) work here as well. The real meanings behind 見送り (miokuri), 持ち帰る (mochikaeru), and 検討します (kentō shimasu) are the sharpest dividing line between the BJT and the JLPT.
Days 61–90: mocks and exam conditions
At least one full mock a week, strictly timed, no pausing. The point isn't only the score — it's training the physical stamina to hold focus for two straight hours.
Final week: stop learning new material, review errors, fix your sleep schedule.
4. Three ways people waste their prep
Practicing listening from text-only books. Chart items without charts means you're training reading. A fair number of older BJT books still reflect the 100-item era and no longer match the current format.
Spending everything on vocabulary. It's the foundation, not the house. Every cycle produces people who discover in week 13 that they can't follow a spoken line.
Doing items without reading explanations. A hundred items unexamined is worth less than twenty fully understood. BJT errors are strongly typed — the same trap recurs.
5. Know where you're starting
The worst outcome is studying blind for three months and learning your weak section only after the exam.
Take a scored diagnostic at the very beginning, get the per-section breakdown, and see whether listening or reading is actually costing you. Retest every 30 days and watch whether the curve moves.
Start with a scored diagnostic. Knowing your current position is what makes a 90-day plan meaningful.
Our system carries four full mock exams, business vocabulary grouped by situation, and four-language explanations — all built to the current format, not recycled from the 100-item era.
—— BJT提分班