Tips for getting TOPIK Level 6
I took my TOPIK II exam last October. Before taking the exam, I was aiming at getting Level 5 (requires a total score higher than 190), and to my and my teacher’s surprise I turned out obtained Level 6 in the exam (requires a total score higher than 230). To be frank I think my Korean fluency (e.g. oral speaking, listening skills) is probably worse than many candidates who obtained lower score in the exam. [e.g. former IZ*ONE member Honda Hitomi scored 215 in the exam, but I am 100% sure her Korean is much more fluent than mine :) ]
I am very happy with the results, and I think my good results could be attributed to these 2 reasons:
- I was quite serious about the exam preparation
- Most importantly, I found the way that I prepared for the exam was quite effective for improving the exam score. (but may not be very useful for improving general Korean fluency)
I would like to share those preparation techniques with future TOPIK II candidates in case you find them useful.
Listening
1. Analyse your “Weak Question Numbers”
The question format of each of the 50 questions are the same across each year. While I was practicing on the past exam questions, I keep track of the questions that I made mistake in each exam. I found that there are some question numbers that I was really weak (I will refer to them as WQN, i.e. Weak Question Number).
Near the exam date, your goal is to maximise your score in these WQNs. My preparation technique is to revisit these WQNs in batches. For example, #7, #12, #15 etc were my WQNs. So I revisited all the #7 across years, then all the #12 across years and so on. This method gives you a much deeper understanding about the format of each WQN, which is very important in improving on your weaknesses.
2. Train question reading speed
The listening exam is 80% reading questions, and 20% understanding the audio. It is particularly true for question #1 to #20 because they are YOLO (you only listen once) questions. For #1 to #20, if I fail to read the question options before the audio being played, it is very difficult to select the correct answer.
Here is my strategies / techniques:
- While solving picture questions #1 to #3, do not spend time on reading the contents of #1 to #3. Instead, read the questions of your WQNs within #1 to #20 (jump between questions). The rationale is that pictures in #1 to #3 are quite straight forward, so you should be able to select the correct answer if you can understand the audio. So having more time to read the WQNs’ content will increase the chance of solving them correctly.
- For #21 to #50 question pairs (for every 2 question there is 1 audio, and each audio is played twice), aim at solving both questions at the first audio play.
- For #21 to #50 question pairs, solve the “detail type” question first, and then solve the “topic type” question.
[Link to the google sheet (in case you are interested, but please come back and finish reading the article!): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QTFD67cY5oZjTCYxOuLazYnAA1MY99StSvhkh2K_MdU/edit?usp=sharing]
Reading
1. Train to “break” long things
- Break long sentence by topic article 은 / 는
- Break long paragraph by adverb
2. Enrich essential vocabularies
- Verb > Noun
- Don’t spend too much time to recite exotic vocabularies
Similar to the listening exam, reading speed is also very important in the reading exam. If you can read faster, you have more time to deduce the main idea of the article, and deduce the meaning of some unknown vocabularies, which results in better accuracy in the your answers.
One obstacle of reading fast in TOPIK reading exam is the articles are composed by long paragraphs, and the long paragraphs themselves are composed by long sentences. These long sentences contain many “details”.
For example, 64th #46-#47 … 대표적인 판메 방식은 1인 미디어 운영자가 방송 중에 특정 물전을 의도적으로 노출하여 구메를 유도하는 것이다. The key information in this sentence is actually from the verbs (물전을) 노출하여 + (구메를) 유도하다. If you understand the meaning of these 2 verbs, you can probably understand what this sentence is trying to tell us without knowing the other words.
3. Learn about Korean “cultural essentials”
This is probably only for candidates aiming at TOPIK level 6, which you try to squeeze as much score as possible from the questions. By Korean “cultural essentials” I mean things/topics that are:
- special to Korean culture / society
- usually have a neutral / positive to Korean, very unlikely to be negative
Examples are fun facts about sports / activities / products that Korean are good at (e.g. Go [as in AlphaGo], variety shows, K-Drama, the making of Korean food etc). In TOPIK exams, there are usually a few questions on these topics every year. It would help a lot if you have read about those topics before, so that you can grab the context of the article very quickly. If you understand the context of the article, you basically have the answer of the “main idea” type question already. And if you have read on a particular topic, it is particularly useful to memorise the nouns for those topics.
When I was taking my exam, there was a question on explaining why the black piece is physically larger than white piece in the game of Go. I happen to be a Go player for many years (even before learning Korean), so I immediately knew what the article is trying to explain. And as I am a Go player, I know about the nouns of Go in Korean (e.g. 바둑 for Go itself, 흑 for the black pieces, 백 for the white pieces), so I was able to answer that question quickly. If you aim for good results, reading about these topics will give you an edge in the exam.
For the purpose of TOPIK preparation, I think it won’t help much to read about the negative social issues about Korean. It is unlikely to appear in the exam questions. Focusing on neutral / positive topics would be most beneficial for the exam preparation.
Writing
I didn’t score high in the writing paper, but here are some notes / techniques for preparation that I believe are useful.
1. Fill in the blanks - precision is all you need
Your answer should be very short, no need to add unnecessary wordings. Just put the shortest answer that is natural and makes sense.
2. Short writing - perfect your “template”
Short writing is pure factual information summarisation, and no creativity is needed. If you have practised a few past exam questions, you would notice that this question type in the recent years are much standardised than earlier years. So in you preparation, just recite a template that is most natural to you, and practise on the writing speed. Before the exam date, you should have achieved a state that you can keep writing without stop and think.
3. Long writing - have a “framework”
Similar to short writing question, you should have a general “framework” that would fit most if not all kinds of long writing questions. I think there is a lot of luck factor in the long writing question. If it is a topic that you are familiar with, your flow would be much smoother, and vice versa. But apart from luck, there is a few skill factors that would increase your chance of getting high score:
- Skill of writing a general introduction [paragraph 1] based on the question
- Skill of writing an ending quickly. When working on the long writing question, 95% you are running out of time when it comes to writing the ending, so it is important to be able to end the article smoothly under time pressure.
- Skill of transiting naturally between paragraphs / points. This is a topic-independent skill that can be trained.
- Skill of articulate ideas quickly
- Grammatical correctness + naturalness
Retrospectively thinking, the best way to prepare for long writing questions is “fragment-based” practices. Fragment-based practices are contrary to practice by completing the whole long writing questions, but every time you practice on one/few skills that are essential to long writing questions. For example, if you plan for practising on 10 long writing questions, the “fragment-based” way to do that could be:
- You practise writing introduction paragraphs for those questions.
- You practise writing ending paragraphs for those questions.
- You practise writing the main content, and the transition of those questions.
- …
This “fragment-based” way of practising is similar to the way I improve on my weak questions for listening (see section: Analyse your “Weak Question Numbers”). After “fragment-based” practices, you practise working on the long writing question by the traditional way (write the whole article in one go). Probably you can feel the difference before and after the “fragment-based” practices.
4. Good reading resources
(This is available in Naver app 지식+ as well)
There are many articles that are written on similar style / topic as the long writing questions, and also articles on Korean “cultural essentials”. Pick the topics you are interested and read them regularly.
I wish you all getting good results in your TOPIK exam!
