My MEXT Story: How I Cleared the Written Exam in 20 Days

This is the first chapter of a series I call Japan Unfiltered: my life as a MEXT scholar, the failures and successes, the friends, the culture shock, the loneliness, the funny and painful moments. It isn't a motivational speech. It's my story, so that you can be more prepared than I ever was.

It started with a broken phone 📱

My journey to Japan didn't start on a plane. It started when I saw my name on the MEXT document screening list in 2022, on my broken mobile phone.

Honestly, until then I wasn't serious about Japan. No dream, no roadmap. A friend and I filled the form the way people buy lottery tickets, planning to "try seriously next year". But we did follow every single instruction in the guidelines.

Then, a week before results, something changed. I kept refreshing the embassy website and watching Discord, Reddit and WhatsApp for updates from other countries. Casual became hope, and hope became fear. One evening around 5 p.m. I called the embassy: "When are the results coming?" "This week," they said. Two hours later, the PDF was out.

I scrolled fast. Undergraduate… KOSEN… Specialized Training College. My name wasn't on the first page. My heart was thumping. Second page. And there it was: Aditya Dewangan.

I broke down in tears. It was the first time in my life I had achieved something entirely on my own.

If you get a chance at document screening, take it very, very seriously. Thousands apply; you can't control who gets shortlisted. But once you're in the exam hall, you're selected on what you write. Now everything is in your hands.

I was in Mumbai with friends. We hugged, I ordered pizza for everyone, wiped my tears, and called my parents. Their "congratulations!" was met with: "I need to prepare. I don't have time." That day my family heard the weight in my voice and realised I was serious.

I had about 20 days to prepare maths, English and Japanese. And I was terrible at maths.

Pillar 1: a maths mentor and the NCERT book ➗

My father is a central government school teacher, and he arranged for an experienced maths teacher (25 years of teaching) to help me. I took the next train.

I'd self-studied all day before reaching his house at 7 p.m., expecting a magic formula. Instead he asked for the previous years' papers, studied them for 20 minutes, nodded, and handed me two things:

1. The NCERT class 12 maths textbook.
2. An Arihant handbook.

He marked six or seven past questions and showed me near-identical ones in NCERT. I was stunned: I'd been wasting time on flashy IIT-level mock papers. STC maths is class 11 and 12 level, and NCERT plus a handbook is enough.

Because time was short, we didn't go topic by topic. We focused only on high-weightage questions, understood each concept through many questions, and built templates: "if this type of question comes, use this approach." Ten days of that, and in the real exam I finished the maths paper in 30 minutes.

(Everyone learns differently. This worked for me because I had no time, no patience and no second chance. So I went all in.)

Visit your exam centre early 🏢

Ten days before the exam I moved to Delhi. My parents were confused: "The exam is in 10 days, why go now?"

Because every night I was lying awake imagining: What will the place look like? What if something goes wrong? Our brains fear the unknown. So I walked straight into it. On day one I booked a PG and went to the exam centre to see the gates, the building, where I'd enter.

After that, exam day felt like a walk in a park I'd already visited.

Pillar 2: a Japanese teacher and 100/100 on every past paper 🇯🇵

My PG was near my Japanese teacher, my second pillar. I begged her to help me cover as much as possible in 10 days, and she agreed. Her teaching was so fluid and intuitive that she's a huge reason I fell in love with Japanese.

For those 10 days:

• I tried to memorise hundreds of kanji a day.
• I did reading comprehension daily and sat with her all day.
• At night in the PG, I solved every MEXT past paper I could find, made my own answer keys, and re-did any paper where I scored under 90 until I got 100.

Did the same questions come in the real paper? Barely. But I walked in confident, and confidence let me give 110%.

Mentors matter. My story isn't a lone-wolf story. I had pillars. A mentor beside you is the fastest way to get where you want to go.

Exam day 👔

The night before, I closed all my books. My calendar was full of crosses; everything was done.

I woke early, showered, wore a formal shirt and even got a haircut, because I was meeting embassy officials for the first time and wanted to feel I belonged there. My new shoes were biting my heels, so I tore a page from my notebook and stuffed it in the back of the shoe. Classic jugaad.

At the centre, everyone else was in jeans and oversized shirts. I looked like I'd come for a job interview. I didn't care.

On the way I stopped at a gurdwara. I didn't ask for a miracle or a perfect score. I said: Thank you for this day. I've done everything I could. Just give me the strength to do the rest.

• English went smoothly. My father had always been my English teacher.
• Maths went exactly to plan: high-mark questions first.
• Japanese: just before it started, officials told us that for STC candidates it wasn't compulsory and anyone could leave. Many candidates got up and walked out. I didn't. After everything I'd put in, it mattered to me that I wrote it.

The booklet had JLPT-style multiple-choice questions from N5 up to N2. I got some N5, N4 and a little N3 right. Beyond that it was foreign territory, so I made my best guesses and didn't leave anything blank.

After the paper I thanked the officials (arigatō gozaimasu), went straight home, and knew I'd given my best.

What to take from chapter one ✅

1. Follow the guidelines exactly, even if you're applying "casually".
2. If you're shortlisted, go all in. No safety net, no excuses.
3. Use past papers to find what matters, and NCERT for STC-level maths.
4. Find mentors. Don't do it all alone.
5. Visit your exam centre early to kill the fear of the unknown.
6. Write every paper, even optional ones, and never leave a blank.
7. Start Japanese now. I had 10 days; you can have months.

What happened after the written exam is the next chapter. Meanwhile, start your Japanese with our free course, read about the MEXT STC scholarship and studying in Japan for free, and if you want mentors for your MEXT journey, look at FS – Future's Scholar.