TOPIK Intermediate Tips and Tricks


If someone wants to show his English proficiency to certain institutions, he can do so by showing his TOEFL score. Similar condition also works for Korean proficiency. In order to show one’s acquaintance level with Korean language, showing one’s TOPIK score will be quite sufficient, particularly in formal cases, such as job hiring and graduate school admissions.

Unlike TOEFL, TOPIK is divided into three different levels of tests, namely Beginner (level 1 and 2), Intermediate (3 and 4), and Advanced level (5 and 6). Mostly possessing Intermediate level (3 or 4) is sufficient for many cases, unless you’re planning to pursue Korean major or work in South Korea in the fields  require high level of Korean proficiency. Therefore, in this article, I would like to discuss more on how to boost up our TOPIK Intermediate score.

As a KGSP student, I’m required to pass TOPIK Level 3 prior to my admission to my master university. Because of that, I studied Korean Language in International Education Center of Keimyung University. After studying there for almost 6 months and taking TOPIK course arranged by the university, I managed to pass the required level of TOPIK proficiency. Providing the facts that I never took any TOPIK test before, and when I register the Intermediate test I have never seen any Intermediate TOPIK questions before, I’m thinking that the methods taught by my teachers are really nice. That is why I wanna share such methods with you guys.

During one month of TOPIK course, the teachers can somehow pull up my score as much as 20 points overall. Since there are 4 section of TOPIK, then it means 4×20=80 points in total. Taking into account that in average each question in TOPIK worths 3.33 points, it boost my skill so that I can answer 24 more questions. 80 out of maximum 400 points also means quite high increase.

(In this article I assume readers already possessed basic fundamental knowledge related to TOPIK. If you don’t know yet, such as the passing scores, test elements, the dates of test, etc., please refer to TOlPIK’s guideline. Then you can go back to this article afterwards.)

In order to make our study be based on more arranged and well-organized way, I wrote my articles with the following structure:

  1. General Tips for TOPIK
  2. TOPIK Vocabularies (어휘) Tips
    1. Common TOPIK Verbs to remember
    2. Common TOPIK Adjectives to remember
    3. Common TOPIK Adverbs to remember
    4. Common TOPIK Nouns to remember
    5. Common TOPIK Synonyms
    6. Common TOPIK Antonyms
    7. TOPIK Verbs with many meanings
  3. TOPIK Grammars (문법) Tips
    1. List of Common TOPIK Grammars (1)
    2. List of Common TOPIK Grammars (2)
  4. TOPIK Writing (쓰기) Tips
    1. Combining Clauses into Sentence
    2. Filling out Missing Clause in Paragraphs
    3. Writing TOPIK Essay
  5. TOPIK Listening (듣기) Tips
  6. TOPIK Reading (읽기) Tips

Let’s give our best on the test and Good Luck for all of you that take the test!!

Category : KOREA, LEARN KOREAN
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