How I Self-Study for TOPIK I in Under 100 Days
I took the 59th TOPIK I on 15 July 2018, and scored 192/200 on the test, 97/100 for listening and 95/100 for reading, which corresponds to 2급.
I want to share how I self-studied for the test in case it might be helpful for anyone who is also self-studying and aiming to pass TOPIK 2급!
I started studying for TOPIK on 11 April 2018. Therefore, it took me 96 days in total, or roughly just around 3 months.
Here are all my study processes, listed in respective orders.
1. April (Day 1–20) : I began by learning the language in general. Mastering Hangul (한글/Korean Characters) is essential, followed by continuing to learn grammar and vocabulary. Personally, I relied solely on howtostudykorean.com and its corresponding Memrise vocabulary lessons. Some people find that the way howtostudykorean.com teaches Hangul is quite challenging to understand, so you may want to explore other websites to learn Hangul as well.
*IMPORTANT : Please do not focus solely on grammar and neglect vocabulary. Initially, I made this mistake, but I soon realised that I could not construct any sentences because of my lack of vocabulary knowledge. Therefore, I recommend studying the Memrise lessons as mentioned above. (Just unit 1 is sufficient, by the way) While there are over a thousand words to memorise, it is worth it.
2. May (Day 21–36) : Next, I continued studying Korean on the mentioned website and reviewing vocabulary on Memrise. My only tip for you is to hang in there. It can get difficult at times, but it is not impossible to understand. Once I reached level 31 in unit 2 on howtostudykorean.com, I started practising with previous TOPIK papers, which you can find here. I tested myself with the 52nd paper and scored 167/200, which was not bad at all!
3. May (Day 37–51) : After that, I continuously practiced with previous papers while also learning new grammar and vocabulary until I completed all the new format previous papers and reached level 54 in unit 3 on howtostudykorean.com. Additionally, after finishing a previous paper, I would thoroughly study it. If there were any vocabulary or grammar concepts that I had never heard of before, I would look them up on the internet and add them to my vocabulary notebook.
4. June (Day 52–81) : I then paused my howtostudykorean.com lessons and switched to talktomeinkorean.com to review the grammar points I had learnt. I studied up to level 7, lesson 12. After that, I practised with practice tests I found on YouTube, which you can check out here: 듣기 (Listening Part) 읽기 (Reading Part), as well as the ones I found on Topik Guide’s website here.
5. July (Day 82–96) : Concerned that I might encounter words I had never seen before, I studied beginner-level vocabulary and grammar lists from these sites: 1, 2, 3. I also tried taking several old format papers to learn more vocabulary. Again, if there was anything I had never seen or heard of before, I immediately added it to my notebook. During the last week before the test day, I also reviewed old papers (35th, 36th, 37th, 41st, 47th, 52nd) to familiarise myself with the actual papers once again.
Here are all the resources I used in total. Some were what I relied on completely, while others were only used a few times, but I consider all of them helpful resources anyway.
- Howtostudykorean — where I learn all the grammar points
- Howtostudykorean’s memrise vocabulary lesson for unit 1 — where I learn the vocabulary
- Talktomeinkorean — where I revise the grammar points
- Listening Part practise test on Youtube
- Reading Part practise test on Youtube
- TOPIK Previous papers
- Topik Guide’s practise test
- Topik Guide’s beginner level vocabulary list
- Topik Guide’s beginner level grammar list
- Keytokorean’s beginner level vocabulary list
- Mobile App — Memrise, Duolingo, LingoDeer, Naver Dictionary, TOPIK ONE, TOPIKexam, Sejong Korean Vocab — Basic
Hope you find this helpful!
Bothy’s Briefings
