NAT-TEST 3Q study plan

Build a personal kanji list of 120 items drawn from your own study material, tagging each with on-yomi, kun-yomi, and one example compound

Drill 60 of those kanji to recall-from-memory level using spaced repetition, reviewing daily for 15 minutes

Classify every vocabulary item you meet into one of four buckets: noun, verb, i-adjective, na-adjective, and note the part of speech on the card

Write 20 original sentences that each use one new kanji compound, checking particle choice against a reference grammar source

Log every item you miss into an error notebook with the date and the reason for the miss

Add 130 new kanji to reach a 250-item working list, prioritizing high-frequency items over rare ones

Master the transitive/intransitive verb pairs you have encountered, writing each pair with a distinguishing sentence

Drill て-form and た-form conjugation until you can produce them for 50 verbs without hesitation

Complete 40 short conjugation drills covering ない, たい, ている, and てある forms

Re-test all week-1 items and retire any you now recall correctly three times in a row

Shadow 10 short audio passages of 60-90 seconds each, repeating until your rhythm matches the recording

Transcribe 5 of those passages by ear and compare your transcription against the script to locate misheard sounds

Add 100 vocabulary items that you extracted from listening material rather than from reading

Practice distinguishing long vowels, double consonants, and ん before b/p/m sounds with 30 minimal-pair drills

Review all 250 kanji from weeks 1-2 while listening to audio, pairing visual and auditory recall

Map the conditional forms と, ば, たら, and なら onto a one-page comparison sheet with one example each

Read 8 short passages of 200-300 characters and underline every connective (しかし, だから, つまり) before answering questions

Answer 30 reading questions and label each wrong answer by cause: vocabulary gap, grammar misparse, or logic error

Write 10 sentences using conditionals, then rewrite each one into a different conditional where the meaning allows

Review the error notebook and re-do every item missed in weeks 1-3

Read 6 longer passages of 400-600 characters under a 6-minute timer each, noting where you slow down

Identify the main claim of each passage in one written sentence before looking at any question

Add 100 new vocabulary items, prioritizing words that signal contrast, cause, and example

Practice scanning for specific information (names, numbers, times) in 10 notice-and-schedule style texts

Re-test the full 250-kanji list and mark any item that has slipped below 80% recall

Listen to 12 dialogues of 2-3 minutes and answer one comprehension question per dialogue without pausing

Take notes in a fixed shorthand (arrows for cause, plus/minus for evaluation) and review whether the notes captured the key point

Practice 20 questions that ask about the speaker's next action or intention, a common task type

Read 4 passages and match each to its corresponding listening-style summary to strengthen cross-domain comprehension

Shadow 5 of the week-6 dialogues to consolidate rhythm and connected-speech patterns

Run 3 full listening sections under exam timing with no replay, and score each

Isolate your two weakest listening task types and drill 15 items of each

Review the entire kanji list, retiring items you consistently recall and re-drilling the rest

Practice 30 vocabulary questions in the format of the exam, tracking time per question

Re-listen to every audio item you missed and write the exact phrase that defeated you

Take 2 full timed mock tests covering all four domains and record section-by-section scores

Re-drill only the items flagged in your error notebook, skipping anything already mastered

Rehearse the exam-day routine: timing per section, when to guess and move on, and how to mark uncertain answers

Review the kanji list one final time at recall speed, targeting 90% or better

Write a short post-mortem after each mock identifying the single largest remaining weakness