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It does answer some questions I had about exactly how many gaijin there were in Japan who could sit for, and pass the JLPT1 test.
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Asian foreigners in Japan who have passed the JLPT1? Tons.
From other places? Not quite as many.
The JLPT1 is usually the "goal" for longer term language courses, and one of the requirements for enrolling into a Japanese university. This means that there are tons of courses tailored to get people to pass the test, and that alone. Drilling on sample questions may give you the ability to make it through the exam, but it doesn`t mean you`ll be able to use that knowledge outside of the controlled test environment.
"Studying for the test" does not mean "
learning the material". You can easily cram for a multiple-choice test and pass it without understanding or being able to use the information.
For someone who has learned Japanese in an immersion environment, studying it in some find of reasonable progression, and who has good conversational skills - the JLPT1 can be a good measure. But the majority of those taking it are students from Asian countries because they have to pass it to enroll in a Japanese university program. They start at zero and cram for the test, without the goal ever really being proficiency.
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I have been surprised by people who can translate well and pass the JLPT1 and can't carry a conversation in Japanese.
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Knowing a ton of kanji and grammatical patterns will take you at least half the way to passing. They never test on speaking or composition, and all the questions are multiple choice. It`s really not THAT difficult a test, all in all.
In translation there is no need for a quick response, so they can sit and think then reference a dictionary. In speaking there is no way to pull that off.