Korean Job Discussion Forums

[duhweecher]

I have a friend who showed me his score results. I know him pretty well. What I really know is that he's seriously good or close to fluent in Korean. He speaks flawlessly and seems pretty good at reading books in the language. He also has a master's in a subject that was taught entirely in Korean.

He knows that I was a reader for the SAT so I offered to look at his scores. There's clearly something odd.

He's taken the test nearly 15 times and often both the intermediate and advanced levels (over several years). He nearly gets 80 or 90 on all sections (and particularly high in sections on the advanced portion of the test) but ends up getting a 47 or some other random score in only one section, which is below the 50 cut off for getting the score he needs to pass.

I did a rough search online for people with the same problem and found a couple. Is this the general findings?

Had he not taken the test 15 or so odd times and knowing that I've seen him pretty able to focus on the most uninteresting crap for hours at a time, I would suspect that he was just having a bad day. But something seems odd with scoring 80s and then a 47 or 48 in only one section (a section that he scored in the 90s in years prior).

However, I'm thinking that there's something honestly wrong with the scoring system or systematical flawed in terms of the test itself.

How can a person score 80 or 90 consistently then fall to 45 or so in one subject unless either the test is horribly created in terms of difficult from year to year or there being something totally off with the scoring system?

I know that the SAT and GRE exams usually protect against this by also calculating the weighed scores with other exam takers to get a general feel for difficulty.

It really doesn't make sense that people would be deterred from "passing" an exam based on such a strange scoring system.

Can someone educate me on this...I'm planning to take the test and after seeing the results...i.e. a person seemingly fluent in the language (I'm Korean and he speaks and reads a heck of a lot better than me) but they keep failing him? I'm now considering staying away from the flawed system altogether.

[Lucas]

[duhweecher]

[chickenpie]

It's clearly covered in the "Understanding Korean Culture" part of the test.

[salutbonjour]

Perhaps your friend is consistently weak in one of the section. Usually writing or reading.

The test is divided into 2 sections of 45 minutes where one does 2 tests within 45 minutes. Perhaps your friend is spending 30 minutes doing the grammar section (arguably the easiest one) and 15 minutes doing the writing section (which is often the hardest and most time-consuming).

This is a repeated pattern that I have seen 10+ times among people I know where their average is 70+ thanks to 90+ score in grammar, but they fail because of low score in writing.

I suggest your friend practices the test at home and aims to nail his timing on top of his Korean abilities. Making sure that he can fit easily within the required time.

[duhweecher]

[littlelisa]

Or bad time management. But I imagine you would know in this case, based on how much you had to rush/guess at the end?

I only took it once, so I can't say. Actually, here's a question. Is there a way to request back your test booklet or your answer sheet? I wouldn't mind reviewing. I know the old tests are online, but I don't remember every single answer I put.

[duhweecher]

[salutbonjour]

Also you have to take into account the answer counting. All test takers know that there is 7 or 8 of every answer (never 6 or 9) and that getting a few answers wrong can seriously shift your score in one direction or the other.

I got my best reading score on TOPIK intermediate for level 3 reading when the answers I know were mostly the answers without C. I could understand about 40-45% of the questions which isn't enough to pass, but I had only 1 answer with C. I filled in everything else with a C which gave me 7 more answers.

On the other hand guessing a lot of answers on the wrong number can tug you in the other direction.

It's a stupid test with a lot of variance. But the results are in line with what you handed in apart from perhaps the writing section.

[littlelisa]

[nicwr2002]

Another thing that people may not know is that the TOPIK is not geared towards foreigners. It's for Koreans who want to become announcers and such unlike the JLPT.

[Drew345]

I'll just reiterate what someone said above. This is true for the intermediate (level3-4) test, but may not be true for the advance (level 5-6), which from your description your friend is probably taking.

For me, doing practice tests, I found the writing to be the hardest, followed by the reading. I found the grammar/vocab to be the easiest.
On the exam, you have 90 minutes to do the writing and grammar/vocab together. So I purposely split the time 30 minutes on grammar and 60 minutes on writing (about) . This probably costs me 20 points from the grammar test, to gain 10 points on the writing test. So, overall I lost 10 points by doing this, but it allowed me to get over 50 on the writing, which was the critical number to avoid failing.

Likewise for the listening / reading. I totally skipped the last listening question and started the reading early.

Working with practice tests (all previous tests are available for download) will help to see the weak and strong areas and you can adjust the time you spend accordingly. Notably, it is probably recommended to give up some easy points on the grammar to gain a few of the more critical points on the writing section.

[Popocatepetl]

[furtakk]

[duhweecher]