J-CAT study plan

Build a 250-card starter deck of high-frequency nouns, verbs, and い/な-adjectives from a frequency list, with reading, part of speech, and one original example sentence per card

Classify every new verb as godan, ichidan, or irregular, and write out its ます, て, た, ない, and potential forms from memory

Write one original sentence for each of 20 core particles (は, が, を, に, で, と, から, まで, より, など) and check each against a reference grammar

Start an error notebook and log every mistake you make in the week, tagged by cause (unknown word, wrong particle, wrong verb form)

Add 250 more items to the deck, weighted toward two-kanji compounds and な-adjectives, deleting any card you answer correctly three times in a row

Memorise 25 transitive/intransitive verb pairs and produce sentences that show the difference in subject and particle

Contrast と, ば, たら, and なら by writing two sentences for each conditional in which the other three would be wrong, and note why

Record 30 verb-plus-noun or verb-plus-particle collocations where a direct translation from your first language would fail

Drill passive, causative, and causative-passive forms by transforming 30 active sentences into all three and marking the particle changes

Produce 15 sentences each in humble (謙譲語) and respectful (尊敬語) forms for common workplace verbs such as 言う, 見る, 行く, もらう

Work through your error notebook and rewrite every week-one and week-two entry as a corrected sentence with the rule stated in one line

Add 150 words that recur in grammar explanations and instructions (たとえば, ただし, つまり, かわりに, ところが) and note the pattern each one usually introduces

Read ten short passages of 200–400 characters under a 4-minute cap each, answering content questions without re-reading the whole text

Practise handling unknown vocabulary by inferring meaning from surrounding kanji compounds and from the sentence's topic marker before checking a dictionary

Identify and underline the discourse markers that carry the argument (しかし, だから, つまり, 一方) in every passage you read

Keep vocabulary maintenance at 15 minutes a day, adding only words met inside passages

Map referents for こ/そ/あ/ど and この/その/あの across five multi-sentence passages by drawing a line from each pronoun to the noun it replaces

Summarise each of eight passages in two Japanese sentences to force whole-text comprehension rather than keyword matching

Run timed sets of sentence-order and paragraph-cohesion items and record your accuracy per item type

Review the 50 grammar patterns that most often decide reading answers (〜わけではない, 〜に違いない, 〜ざるを得ない, 〜というより) and write one paraphrase of each

Dictate 60 short spoken utterances of 5–10 words each, listening no more than twice, and compare against a transcript

Drill sound changes that hide word boundaries: ている→てる, てしまう→ちゃう, のではない→んじゃない, ければ→けりゃ, and contracted ら行 forms

Train number, counter, time, and price recognition by shadowing twenty short announcement-style clips and writing the figures down

Shadow one 3-minute dialogue daily, matching rhythm and pitch, then retell its content in three spoken sentences

Practise inferring speaker intent and relationship from tone and honorific level in 20 short dialogues rather than from content words alone

Take running notes on 10 longer monologues using a keyword-and-arrow shorthand and answer questions from notes only

Replay the same clips at 1.25x speed after full comprehension to raise processing speed, then return to normal speed

Alternate listening and reading blocks in a single 60-minute sitting to build stamina for switching modes under time pressure

Sit two complete mock tests under exam conditions with no pausing and no dictionary, recording a section score for each of the four parts

Re-derive the rule behind every miss from the error notebook and close out any entry that recurs three times

Re-drill only the 150 cards you have failed most often and stop adding new vocabulary

Fix test-day logistics: section order, adaptive difficulty behaviour, break timing, and a one-page checklist of personal weak points to scan before each section