Most of our students study mainly on a phone, between shifts, standing up. That is not a compromise to apologise for - it is the only study time that reliably exists.
But the exam is a computer test, and some things do not transfer. Here is the honest split.
What a phone is genuinely good for
Vocabulary. This is the big one. Spaced-repetition drilling in three-minute bursts is better on a phone than at a desk, because the bursts happen. Twelve short sessions a day beats one long one. See spaced repetition for Japanese.
Kanji recognition. Recognising a word is a recognition task, and recognition drills fine on a small screen. You are not asked to write kanji on JFT-Basic - see kanji requirements.
Listening, with headphones. Short clips on the way to work are close to ideal. The ear does not care about screen size.
Set expressions. The Conversation and Expression section is largely recall of fixed phrases. Phones are good at recall.
There is a whole guide on making this work: studying Japanese on your phone.
What a phone cannot rehearse
The clock. Sixty unbroken minutes at a desk is a physical skill, and it cannot be practised in three-minute pieces. Candidates whose entire preparation happened on a phone routinely run out of time in the reading section on their first real sitting.
Reading on a screen at exam length. Reading a Japanese notice on a six-inch screen where you can zoom is not the same act as reading it on a fixed monitor with no annotation, no underlining, and no crossing out of eliminated options.
Single-play audio through headphones with no replay. On a phone you replay by reflex. The exam plays each clip and moves on.
The rule we give our students
Phone for volume. Computer for conditions.
Practically: drill on the phone every day, and once a week sit a full-length mock on a laptop, at a desk, with headphones, uninterrupted. Our free exam demo runs in a browser and enforces the exam’s rules - audio that plays twice by itself, no going back in listening, one 60-minute clock.
Once a week is enough. The phone work is what raises your knowledge; the weekly mock is what converts it into a score.
If you have no computer at all
Many candidates do not, and it is not a barrier to passing - it is a barrier to rehearsing, which is different.
Two workarounds that genuinely help:
- Borrow one for an hour a week. A friend, a cybercafe, a classroom. One hour weekly is enough.
- Simulate the constraints on the phone. Landscape orientation, headphones in, a timer running, no pausing, no replaying a clip, no dictionary. It is imperfect, but the two habits that matter most - managing a single clock and hearing a clip once - can be trained this way.
What differs on the real screen is set out in what the screen actually does. Read it before the day even if you cannot practise on a computer: knowing in advance removes most of the surprise.