During its nearly 30-year history, the number of examinees tackling the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) (日本語能力試験) has exploded worldwide from 7,000 in 1984 to 750,000 in 2009. Japan Educational Exchanges and Services (JEES, www.jlpt.jp) now administers the test in 39 prefectures in Japan and 103 cities in 22 countries/areas outside the archipelago.
Beginning in July, 2010, JEES began to offer the test twice a year (adding a summer date to the long-standing December one) and also gave the test format a major shake-up by increasing the number of test levels from four to five. Each level (formerly named "Level 1," "Level 2," etc.) was given a slightly tweaked moniker — from N5 at the bottom of the scale of difficulty, to N1 at the top. (The "N" stands for both "nihongo" and "new").
Newbie N3 is positioned as a bridge in difficulty between the old Levels 2 and 3; intermediate-level test-takers have long complained that the wide gap between these two levels was intimidating. N4 is approximately the same level as the old Level 3 test, and N5 nearly the same as the old Level 4. N1 is closely matched to the level of the old Level 1 test, but is "designed to measure slightly more advanced abilities" (i.e., can be expected to be more challenging than the old Level 1).