About the BJT Exam
What is BJT (ビジネス日本語能力試験)?
The BJT is a test to evaluate your proficiency in communicating in the Japanese language required in business settings. Business communication proficiency requires the ability to understand and implement the Japanese language. The communicative proficiency required in business settings involves the ability to campaign for a project in Japanese and explain things plainly in Japanese to others with specialties and backgrounds that differ from your own. You must also be able to ask for clarification of unclear points. In other words, it is the ability to understand and implement the Japanese language to address business issues effectively.
The Business Communication Proficiency is measured on a Scale of 0 to 800.
The BJT is a proficiency test measuring the examinee's current communicative proficiency in business in the Japanese language. The results are processed statistically based on item response theory (IRT) to produce a score from 0-800, and evaluated on a scale of six levels from J5 to J1+. The BJT can measure the absolute value of the examinee's proficiency, providing an objective hold of changes in proficiency.
Proficiency and Achievement Tests
Achievement tests, which determine whether an acceptable level of achievement has been attained, are practical in testing knowledge. Such tests include the CPA (Certificated Public Accountant) exam, bar exams, and other official tests. A proficiency test, on the other hand, is best suited to producing an integrated evaluation when the measurement band is broad, as is the case with business communication proficiency.
Immigration authorities also use BJT scores to help determine foreigners' eligibility for international student visas.
Immigration authorities refer to BJT scores as well as the level of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test when evaluating applications submitted by foreigners entering Japan for certification of eligibility.
Many businesses and schools apply the BJT
An Index for Recruitment or Promotion
More and more Japanese businesses are actively recruiting foreigners. They utilize the BJT as an index to maximize transparency in their personnel systems.
Supporting students' career development
More and more universities are using the BJT in their efforts to help students find jobs and to set goals for academic achievement. Some universities apply BJT results to course credits.
Supporting Students Preparing to go to Universities
BJT results are used increasingly in the evaluation of international students taking university entrance exams. The BJT has been accepted by some Japanese language schools as a tool with which their students preparing for university entrance exams can demonstrate their proficiency in Japanese.
An Exact test designed by Experts in Various Fields
The BJT's high level of accuracy has been maintained through the continual efforts of experts in Japanese language education, linguistics, statistics, and other fields, as well as professionals in the business world, who help develop the BJT through ongoing discussions of the test itself, methods of scoring, etc.
Abilities Tested by the BJT
The BJT is not simply a test for measuring Japanese or business knowledge. The test takes up a basic understanding of Japanese and objectively measures the ability to process and respond appropriately to provide information. For that reason, the questions cover the full range of situations that may arise in a Japanese-language business environment.
Knowledge of Japanese grammar, vocabulary, and business practices is regarded as prerequisite knowledge. The main objects of measurement are the ability to process information and business skills.
The Three-Part Test Measures Overall Proficiency.
Scaled score produces highly reliable results.
A single response to each MCQ (with four options) is marked on an answer sheet. The results are evaluated not merely as raw scores (i.e., 1 point for each question), but calculated through statistical processing of raw scores based on item response theory (IRT). The data is processed with a conversion equation that enables the final result to reflect the difficulty of each question. Known as "scaled score," this is an exact, internationally recognized method.
The greater the complexity of information processing, the higher the score.
Communication in business situations is performed successfully through the parallel processing of various information streams. The BJT is designed to award higher scores in proportion to the volume and difficulty of the information processing required for communication.
Communication is regarded as the performance of the information processing tasks listed on the vertical axis, through evaluation and judgment of information, as required for each task listed across the horizontal axis.