Korean Job Discussion Forums

[hwarangi]

[PigeonFart]

Anyone know when the 2013 new semester starts?

(I've already taken one semester of the program, but my level of Korean is too low to check the website)

[malaz]

Does anyone know how many questions/percentage of korean culture part in the level test ? I am taking the test next month and wondering how much time should I invest in the korean culture part...

anyone else taking the exam next month ?

[PigeonFart]

Invest none if you're a low level speaker. Invest only a small part if you're an intermediate speaker. Invest more time if you're a high level speaker.

I did the test last year. Most of the test (i'm guessing 80%) is just general vocab/grammar that you'd learn from any other class or book.

Specific cultural vocabulary is only necessary if you're aiming to be placed in a higher level (level 4 or 5). That's just my opinion. If someone disagrees, that's fair enough.

[alongway]

Yes, it's probably not too helpful to try and over-shoot for this test. If you bust your backside studying day and night just to try and get a good placement, but not really studying for long-term retention you might end up hurting yourself as you get placed into a level you might not really be ready for.

[malaz]

I am guessing i am around topik level 3 and I will finish topik intermediate materials before the level test comes.
just wondering if I should spend the rest of my time studying more previous topic exams or go for the 귀화시험한번에통과하기 which i just bought...because I really want to get to the high levels 4 or 5.

PigeonFart (cool name btw) do you mean the remaining 20% were all culture/history? if so, that's a big number !

[spaceman82]

When I took it last year, there was almost no culture/history on the test (some knowledge might help one during the speaking test, but that's about it). The one the year before had a fair amount of culture/history on it, though, so who knows how they'll have changed it for this year. Going off of last year's test, though, I would not be studying culture/history at all.

[jaeexp]

I just got my F2-7 on Friday!
I recently completed the Intergration Course and made up a combined total of 81 points.
It was all fairly straight-forward. Passing the Intergration Course itself gives you a total of 25 points (even without a TOPIK score) and as long as you have your degree and are in a high scoring age group, it's fairly easy to make up the rest of the points. Relief at last!

[escarole]

jaeexp,

I hope you don't mind me asking, which immigration office did you go to?

I've heard some are much more lenient than others in issuing the points visa.

[furtakk]

Anyone able to join classes yet?
Or is the registration not opening up until after the new placement test?

[jaeexp]

The main office in Omokgyo. They try to act strict but at the end of the day, if you have all the appropriate papers, you will get it.

[malaz]

jaeexp,

can you please answer my question about the amount of culture/history questions in the placement test?

furtakk

I can't sign for classes either.. I think it should be after the placement test...

[furtakk]

I wrote the previous placement test. There aren't really any culture questions in the strict sense. For example, they won't ask you what's the name of the Korean national anthem, or how many provinces are in Korea, etc.

Rather, there's a few vocab questions that are somewhat culture related. If you've studied Korean for awhile, most of them probably came up in your text book or are pretty simple. One question, if I remember correctly, described a food and you had to choose what it was. Another was the name of the money given at a funeral or wedding. Really not a whole lot.

More importantly... study grammar and practice reading comprehension. The test starts off really simple, but the final couple pages are about the equivalent of intermediate TOPIK stuff.

[goreality]

Unless you magically learned Korean to a high intermediate level without learning any of the cultural context, I wouldn't be too worried about it most of the culture questions on it are straight forward. I know several people who landed in level 4 after completing all 6 levels at a university, they didn't mess up because of the (obvious) cultural questions.
The final test is mostly culture and not so obvious, but the pretest has speaking questions like describe Korea's four seasons, or Kimchi is A spicy, B sweet, C Japanese D a fruit.

[thatkidpercy]