Best free resources for JLPT prep — what's actually worth your time

Compiling a list of what's actually useful for JLPT prep after going through a lot of material that wasn't. Wanted to share what worked for me and hopefully save others some time.

For japanese proficiency test n5 specifically, the free resources are surprisingly good. The jlpt kanji readings and meanings questions and answers has questions that closely match real exam difficulty — not dumbed-down versions that give you false confidence.

What I'd skip: most YouTube "pass in one week" content. The explanations are surface-level and don't prepare you for the applied questions on the actual JLPT exam. Flashcards alone also aren't enough for this one.

What actually worked: timed practice sets with immediate review of wrong answers, reading the official reference material for any concept that came up more than twice, and finding one study partner for the japanese language proficiency levels sections. The social accountability made a bigger difference than I expected.