EIKEN Pre-1 and Pre-2: Why the Ladder Has Half Steps

Most exam ladders have levels. EIKEN has levels and half levels, and three of its grades are half levels.

Pre-1 is the Japanese ministry's benchmark for English instructors.

SpeakShark is free for the interview at the end of any of them, three AI conversation sessions a day with no card.

In this guide: what Pre means · where they sit · Pre-1 and teachers · Pre-2 Plus · choosing · speaking · limits · method · FAQ

Key takeaways

Pre-1 and Pre-2 are full grades, not practice versions of Grade 1 and Grade 2.
The published table names Pre-1 as the MEXT benchmark for English instructors.
Pre-2 Plus was added between Pre-2 and Grade 2, making three half steps in total.
Every grade from Grade 3 upward, including both Pre grades, ends in a face to face interview.
Half steps exist because the gaps between numbered grades are large for learners.
Target the grade that carries the recognition you need, not the tidiest number.

What Pre actually means

The naming misleads English speakers in a specific way, so it is worth being blunt.

Pre does not mean preparatory. Pre-1 is not a warm up for Grade 1 and Pre-2 is not a mock version of Grade 2. Each is a separate grade with its own first stage paper, its own pass mark and its own certificate.

Pre means immediately below. Pre-1 sits between Grade 2 and Grade 1. Pre-2 sits between Grade 3 and Grade 2. The prefix is positional, not qualitative.

Passing one is passing an exam, and the certificate does not carry an asterisk saying you attempted the grade above.

Once you read the prefix that way, the ladder stops looking odd and starts looking deliberate.

Where the Pre grades sit

Position	Grade
Top	Grade 1
Half step	Pre-1
	Grade 2
Half step	Pre-2 Plus
Half step	Pre-2
	Grade 3
	Grade 4
Bottom	Grade 5

Three half steps out of eight positions. That is a lot of ladder devoted to intermediate stops, and it is concentrated in one region: everything between Grade 3 and Grade 1.

That concentration is the finding. The Foundation has not spread its half steps evenly. It has put them where the climb from lower intermediate to advanced happens, which is exactly where learners spend the longest and give up the most often. We look at the full step count and the disagreement it causes in seven or eight grades, and at how the grades map onto CSE scores in the CSE score overlap.

Pre-1 is the teacher benchmark

This is the detail that changes how Pre-1 should be read, and it comes straight from the published grades table.

The table lists Pre-1 as the MEXT benchmark for English instructors. MEXT is the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.

Compare that to the other anchors in the same table. Grade 3 is the benchmark for junior high school graduates and Grade 2 for high school graduates. Both describe students at a stage of schooling. Pre-1 describes the people teaching them.

Three things follow.

A half step carries a professional expectation. Whatever else Pre-1 is, it is not a fallback. It is the level the ministry names when it describes what an English instructor should have.

The teacher benchmark sits below the top grade. Grade 1 is listed against international admissions rather than against teaching, so the ladder's highest step is aimed at study abroad and its teacher anchor is one step down.

It is unusual to publish at all. A national system stating a language level for its own teachers is a rare piece of transparency, and it gives learners a genuinely useful reference point: the level of the person at the front of the room.

Pre-2 Plus and why it was added

The newest grade is the clearest evidence of what the half steps are for.

Pre-2 Plus sits between Pre-2 and Grade 2, in a gap that already had a half step in it. A ladder that adds a step inside an existing half step is telling you something specific: that the distance between those two grades was still too large for learners to cross in one attempt.

It is also the reason English language sources disagree about the size of the ladder. Older descriptions say seven grades, newer ones say eight, and both are quoting a real count from a different moment. If you are reading advice about EIKEN, checking whether it mentions Pre-2 Plus is a quick test of how current it is.

The practical consequence is small but real. A grade added recently has fewer past papers behind it, which matters because the Foundation releases every first stage administration free with audio, as we covered in EIKEN past papers are free. Newer grade, shorter archive.

Which one to target

The ladder invites you to climb it. Most candidates should not.

If a specific grade carries the recognition you need, target that grade. Pre-1 for the instructor benchmark, Grade 1 for the international admissions listing, Grade 2 for the high school graduate benchmark. Everything else on the ladder is somebody else's step.

If you are climbing as a learner, the half steps are the point. They exist because the numbered jumps are large, and a pass at a half step is a real certificate rather than a participation marker.

If you are an adult outside the school system, do not start at the bottom. The published applicant breakdown shows three in four candidates are at junior or senior high school, which we set out in who actually takes EIKEN. The progression was designed for somebody moving through school over several years.

Whatever you target, count backwards from a real date. The published calendar and the D, E and F restriction for international candidates are in EIKEN test dates 2026 to 2027.

The speaking stage applies to both

A Pre grade is not a lighter exam, and the second stage is where that becomes obvious.

Every grade from Grade 3 upward, which includes Pre-2, Pre-2 Plus and Pre-1, ends in a face to face interview conducted entirely in English at a public test site, roughly a month after the first stage. There is no recorded alternative and no half version of it. We cover the structure in the EIKEN speaking test as a second stage, and the top grade's two examiner format in Grade 1's two examiners.

The only grades with a different arrangement are 4 and 5, whose recorded speaking test cannot affect the pass or fail result, covered in Grade 4 and 5 speaking.

So the half step is half a step in level and a full exam in structure. That is worth planning for, because the first stage has free official papers and the interview does not.

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What half steps tell you about any exam ladder

One transferable habit, because EIKEN is not the only system that does this.

When an exam board adds an intermediate level, it is publishing a map of where its own candidates stall. The gap it fills is the gap people were failing to cross. That is more informative than any syllabus, because a syllabus describes what a level contains while an added step describes what learners actually found impossible in one jump.

Applied elsewhere: the Cambridge ladder spaces its exams by CEFR level, which we compare in Cambridge speaking criteria by level, and the IELTS band scale uses half bands for the same reason EIKEN uses Pre grades, because whole steps are too coarse near the middle of the range. What band 7 actually means on that scale is in what band 7 means, the visa mapping is in the UKVI band table, and the wider survey is in every English requirement we have read. For the scale of the system these grades sit inside, see why EIKEN is Japan's national English test.

What we could not verify

We did not read a Foundation statement explaining why Pre-2 Plus was introduced. The reading above, that half steps mark where jumps were too large, is our inference from where they sit on the ladder, and we label it as inference.

We did not open a page listing CSE score ranges for each Pre grade individually, so no per grade score bands appear here.

We make no claim that Pre-1 is required to teach English in Japan. The published table describes it as a MEXT benchmark for English instructors, and benchmark is the word we report.

We did not verify how many past paper administrations exist for Pre-2 Plus specifically.

How we researched this guide

The grade list, the position of each Pre grade, the MEXT benchmark for English instructors at Pre-1, the benchmarks at Grade 3 and Grade 2 and the international admissions listing at Grade 1 all come from the Eiken Foundation of Japan's EIKEN Grades page, opened directly in a browser and read in its English version. The second stage interview format and its application from Grade 3 upward come from the Foundation's EIKEN speaking tests page, and the free past paper release from its preparation page, both opened directly. Where we suggest a reason for the half steps, that is our inference and is labelled as such.

We are a speaking improvement tool. We are not an exam preparation provider, and we are not affiliated with the Eiken Foundation of Japan, MEXT or any exam board. For grades, formats and current requirements, go to the exam body directly. Use SpeakShark to make your spoken English stronger, and use official material to learn the test.

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Sources

FAQ

What does Pre mean in EIKEN Pre-1 and Pre-2?

It marks a grade that sits below the numbered grade it is named after, so Pre-1 is below Grade 1 and Pre-2 is below Grade 2. They are not preparation courses or practice versions. They are full grades with their own first stage paper, their own pass mark and, from Grade 3 upward, their own face to face speaking interview.

Is Pre-1 worth having on its own?

Yes, and more than most half steps in any exam system. The Foundation's grades table lists Pre-1 as the MEXT benchmark for English instructors, which is the only place in the published table where a grade is tied to teachers rather than to students. A grade a ministry names for the people who teach the language is not a consolation prize for missing Grade 1.

What is Pre-2 Plus?

It is the newest addition to the ladder, sitting between Pre-2 and Grade 2, and it is the reason sources disagree about whether EIKEN has seven grades or eight. Its existence is the clearest evidence of what the Pre grades are for, because the Foundation added a step precisely where the gap between two existing grades was widest for learners.

Should I skip the Pre grades and go straight for the numbered one?

It depends entirely on what you need the certificate for rather than on tidiness. If a specific grade carries the recognition you want, target that grade and ignore the rest of the ladder. If you are climbing the ladder as a learner, the half steps exist because the jumps between numbered grades are large, and skipping one usually means a longer gap between sittings rather than a faster route.

Do Pre grades have a speaking test?

Yes. Every grade from Grade 3 upward, which includes Pre-2 and Pre-1, ends in a second stage face to face interview conducted entirely in English, held roughly a month after the first stage at a public test site. Only Grades 4 and 5 have the optional recorded speaking test that cannot affect the pass or fail result.