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salutbonjour
Joined: 22 Jan 2013
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 Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 5:14 pm Post subject: |
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| Fox wrote: |
| salutbonjour wrote: |
You can pay 40,000 won, walk into the test, do the test and note down your answer onto another sheet. Then once the results are online you calculate what your final grade for each section should be and see if it matches.
This does not work for the writing section, but you can calculate how much you got for the multiple answers and the short answers to deduce your score on the essay.
I did this and the results were spot on. Everyone I know who noted their answers were spot on too. |
I did something similar. I didn't actually write down my answers, but the test's question and answer sheets are posted online not long after the test finishes, so I just downloaded them, looked over the question sheet, and remembered my answers. My actual results were also in line with my predicted ones. |
That should give a pretty good estimate and give reasonable ground to doubt the grade if its not in line with what you calculated.
Going all the way to the TOPIK offices just because you think maybe perhaps somehow there was an error and maybe they're racists? That's just stupid. |
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duhweecher
Joined: 06 Nov 2013
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| Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 7:01 pm Post subject: |
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| salutbonjour wrote: |
| Fox wrote: |
| salutbonjour wrote: |
You can pay 40,000 won, walk into the test, do the test and note down your answer onto another sheet. Then once the results are online you calculate what your final grade for each section should be and see if it matches.
This does not work for the writing section, but you can calculate how much you got for the multiple answers and the short answers to deduce your score on the essay.
I did this and the results were spot on. Everyone I know who noted their answers were spot on too. |
I did something similar. I didn't actually write down my answers, but the test's question and answer sheets are posted online not long after the test finishes, so I just downloaded them, looked over the question sheet, and remembered my answers. My actual results were also in line with my predicted ones. |
That should give a pretty good estimate and give reasonable ground to doubt the grade if its not in line with what you calculated.
Going all the way to the TOPIK offices just because you think maybe perhaps somehow there was an error and maybe they're racists? That's just stupid. |
Fox is neither a person who cares about (nor likely passed) the test (judging from her often misguided notions about Korea--definitely living on the periphery) so she can sell that BS elsewhere because I know the person (she's clueless; remember she is the self admitted anti-feminist female working in Korea no less--a walking oxy-Moron). If anything, she simply gets personal satisfaction from joining in a convo when she can throw aspersions and pull off the facade of knowing something about the country or any other meaningless item that may be swimming around in her head. Second, I'm not sure where you get your half-witted assumptions nor how it negates my points. I never said my friend went to the office because he believes they made an error or are racist, so only your reading into my comments and applying your own faulty logic has the makings for anything I'd call stupidity. He has every right to ask about the test in person and to figure out how things work there. You can't fault him simply because you're satisfied, lazy, or apathetic. He's just as interested as I am how this test works. It's an important part of many immigrants' lives here. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 7:36 pm Post subject: |
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I took the test this round and passed with level 5. I previously took the test and passed each time (level 3 the first time, then level 4). One could easily search this forum and confirm that, if one were actually interested, given I've posted about each test after taking it.
Ultimately salutbonjour is correct when he says, "Going all the way to the TOPIK offices just because you think maybe perhaps somehow there was an error and maybe they're racists? That's just stupid." |
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thegadfly
Joined: 01 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 8:50 pm Post subject: |
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Why is it so hard to accept that your friend bombed a test? The test ain't rigged -- your friend has some kind of problem. If it were the test, your friend would consistently do poorly on that section -- but going from a 90% (as you claim) to a 50% (as you claim) then back up to 90% again? And having that 50% jump around from one section to another? First instinct is that your friend is straight-up lying to you about past scores, or else seriously misremembering them.
What he "remembers" writing and what he wrote are completely different things, and it is ludicrous that you think you could estimate a score based on what he can recall of his essay.
Now you can certainly argue the validity of the test, or that its targets are not appropriate for a language test, but your energy would be better spent helping your friend learn to take a standardized test, rather than railing against the test itself. |
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Zyzyfer
Joined: 29 Jan 2003
Location: who, what, where, when, why, how?
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| Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 11:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Well page 3 of this thread is certainly entertaining! |
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hiamnotcool
Joined: 06 Feb 2012
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| Posted: Thu Dec 19, 2013 7:22 pm Post subject: |
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| duhweecher wrote: |
Update: Immediately after seeing his score online, he lodged an official complaint using the form that they have online.
He got zero response from them.
So two days ago he went to the office to speak to an official. According to my friend's explanation, the office is in an officetel building dedicated to several other offices (that have nothing to do with language study). There was one woman in an office the size of a one-room flat. It had two cubicles...i.e. it looked like the rinky-dink headquarters of a pyramid scam.
Long story short, we've all but decided that the test isn't being government regulated (or even government inspected) AT ALL, despite having a government-backed website. However, the government is officially accepting and recognizing the test for several different requirements imposed on foreigners living here. (The TOEFL, SAT, GRE, and such exams are typically not recognized by governments, but the scores are respected due to the extremely thorough test-center inspections and the like. So, even if they were, it wouldn't be a problem. The TOPIK, however, IS government recognized and has zero inspections.)
I'm assuming that the people who check test-takers scores are 100% the proctors in the rooms or at the test-centers where the students take the test. This can raise so many problems--it's not even funny; especially when you consider that Korea is...yes I'll say it...racially insensitive toward non-Koreans/ non-Asians.
I'm considering writing about this. I've actually met a Chinese person who got a 5 on the exam (I also speak Chinese and sat down and tried to see if guessing using Chinese on the test works...it doesn't). His Korean is far worse than my friend's. I even paid this Chinese friend to take a practice test yesterday (10,000won/ hour + coffee) and he scored in the lower level 4. It's utterly impossible that he got the scores that I saw on his score sheet (especially in grammar). It could be an isolated case, who knows.
I'm thinking it's safe to say that there are MANY loop holes in the scoring here and there are no safe-guards against race-based scoring (but I'll have to investigate it more before saying it's 100% due to race). At this point it's just safe to say that discrimination can easily play a role in scoring and being backed by the government says a great deal about our country's views toward combating such practices. So while Jasmine Lee (look her up) argues that immigrants here should learn Korean and prove that they know it, little is being done to block people from using her "erudite" ideas to set up the racial glass ceilings that exist in other foreign countries.
Korea has reached a point where multiculturalism requires thorough race-based investigations to probe whether race is being used to discriminate against people who don't fall within certain lines of the colour spectrum (especially if they are requiring photos on people's applications and the like).
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That was an informative post. I failed the TOPIK myself and I found it to be a very difficult test. However, I have some western friends that couldn't be mistaken for Asian or Korean in any way that passed level 4 and level 5. They didn't seem to get by any better than I do with spoken Korean but the thing that distinguished them from me was the way they could explain the grammar. A lot of the grammar is complicated but I could ask them about it and they would be able to explain it to me in a clear way that allowed me to understand it. My vocabulary is extensive, but I missed the context in a lot of the reading and listening because I just couldn't get some of the more detailed grammar points. The test does intentionally try to make a taker slip up too.
Also, Keep in mind the test was originally intended to be taken by ethnic Koreans that were born in China but wanted to apply for Korean citizenship (thank you wikipedia). I believe this has resulted in the vocabulary in the test dealing more with Chinese rooted words than the stuff we use in everyday conversation. Actually I would say as you learn more advanced words in Korean a lot of them are derived from Chinese.
I passed beginner level but I had an instructor prep me for it. I had no instructor for intermediate and I failed it. Looking back my instructor provided me with some essential insight I wasn't getting beforehand, and I probably should have taken a class for intermediate level.
Anyway I had no idea the test had so little oversight. I always thought it was pretty tightly monitored by the government. Aside from the normal accessibility frustrations I have with every Korean website I always felt like the registration process was pretty simple (not taking into account it all has to be in Korean). You say you are considering studying for this but you want to know what you are getting yourself into before you do. i guess look at how you have assessed the situation, and look at how people are responding. I think once you start socializing with the people that are learning Korean and really getting into the culture you are with people that have decided to approach Korea on it's terms with little if any resistance. The TOPIK is part of this imo, there really isn't any way around it except to pass. Of course there might be some corruption or something somewhere, but I really don't think the people I knew that passed did it through corrupt means. I think it's possible for a non Korean to pass the test. I would recommend a prep program if you really want to go down that road though.
I did meet a Chinese guy once though that passed level 4....and yeah he made me think about the shadiness of it a little bit lol. |
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duhweecher
Joined: 06 Nov 2013
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| Posted: Thu Dec 19, 2013 10:34 pm Post subject: |
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| hiamnotcool wrote: |
| duhweecher wrote: |
Update: Immediately after seeing his score online, he lodged an official complaint using the form that they have online.
He got zero response from them.
So two days ago he went to the office to speak to an official. According to my friend's explanation, the office is in an officetel building dedicated to several other offices (that have nothing to do with language study). There was one woman in an office the size of a one-room flat. It had two cubicles...i.e. it looked like the rinky-dink headquarters of a pyramid scam.
Long story short, we've all but decided that the test isn't being government regulated (or even government inspected) AT ALL, despite having a government-backed website. However, the government is officially accepting and recognizing the test for several different requirements imposed on foreigners living here. (The TOEFL, SAT, GRE, and such exams are typically not recognized by governments, but the scores are respected due to the extremely thorough test-center inspections and the like. So, even if they were, it wouldn't be a problem. The TOPIK, however, IS government recognized and has zero inspections.)
I'm assuming that the people who check test-takers scores are 100% the proctors in the rooms or at the test-centers where the students take the test. This can raise so many problems--it's not even funny; especially when you consider that Korea is...yes I'll say it...racially insensitive toward non-Koreans/ non-Asians.
I'm considering writing about this. I've actually met a Chinese person who got a 5 on the exam (I also speak Chinese and sat down and tried to see if guessing using Chinese on the test works...it doesn't). His Korean is far worse than my friend's. I even paid this Chinese friend to take a practice test yesterday (10,000won/ hour + coffee) and he scored in the lower level 4. It's utterly impossible that he got the scores that I saw on his score sheet (especially in grammar). It could be an isolated case, who knows.
I'm thinking it's safe to say that there are MANY loop holes in the scoring here and there are no safe-guards against race-based scoring (but I'll have to investigate it more before saying it's 100% due to race). At this point it's just safe to say that discrimination can easily play a role in scoring and being backed by the government says a great deal about our country's views toward combating such practices. So while Jasmine Lee (look her up) argues that immigrants here should learn Korean and prove that they know it, little is being done to block people from using her "erudite" ideas to set up the racial glass ceilings that exist in other foreign countries.
Korea has reached a point where multiculturalism requires thorough race-based investigations to probe whether race is being used to discriminate against people who don't fall within certain lines of the colour spectrum (especially if they are requiring photos on people's applications and the like).
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That was an informative post. I failed the TOPIK myself and I found it to be a very difficult test. However, I have some western friends that couldn't be mistaken for Asian or Korean in any way that passed level 4 and level 5. They didn't seem to get by any better than I do with spoken Korean but the thing that distinguished them from me was the way they could explain the grammar. A lot of the grammar is complicated but I could ask them about it and they would be able to explain it to me in a clear way that allowed me to understand it. My vocabulary is extensive, but I missed the context in a lot of the reading and listening because I just couldn't get some of the more detailed grammar points. The test does intentionally try to make a taker slip up too.
Also, Keep in mind the test was originally intended to be taken by ethnic Koreans that were born in China but wanted to apply for Korean citizenship (thank you wikipedia). I believe this has resulted in the vocabulary in the test dealing more with Chinese rooted words than the stuff we use in everyday conversation. Actually I would say as you learn more advanced words in Korean a lot of them are derived from Chinese.
I passed beginner level but I had an instructor prep me for it. I had no instructor for intermediate and I failed it. Looking back my instructor provided me with some essential insight I wasn't getting beforehand, and I probably should have taken a class for intermediate level.
Anyway I had no idea the test had so little oversight. I always thought it was pretty tightly monitored by the government. Aside from the normal accessibility frustrations I have with every Korean website I always felt like the registration process was pretty simple (not taking into account it all has to be in Korean). You say you are considering studying for this but you want to know what you are getting yourself into before you do. i guess look at how you have assessed the situation, and look at how people are responding. I think once you start socializing with the people that are learning Korean and really getting into the culture you are with people that have decided to approach Korea on it's terms with little if any resistance. The TOPIK is part of this imo, there really isn't any way around it except to pass. Of course there might be some corruption or something somewhere, but I really don't think the people I knew that passed did it through corrupt means. I think it's possible for a non Korean to pass the test. I would recommend a prep program if you really want to go down that road though.
I did meet a Chinese guy once though that passed level 4....and yeah he made me think about the shadiness of it a little bit lol. |
I am Korean and speak the language fluently but since I was born in the US I am considering taking the test just for certification. However, I also do work in migration studies. I'm concerned that people of color and minorities that are often treated poorly in Korea may be further discriminated by this system, I.e. South East Asians, colored, and blacks. I truly wonder how these people are protected in such a system. Being that there are few of any that take this test at any site, discriminating against them would be fairly easy.
In terms of the negative responses, they bother me fairly little because they smell of self-centered know-it-alls who have nothing thusfar positive to add to the discussion. But the fact that people even question the relavancy and extreme scoring strategy is a step in the right direction (your comment is proof of this). Multiculturalism (I honestly hate this word especially when because it butters the real problem: racism) is something that often requires social dissodance and sometimes disobedience.
Last edited by duhweecher on Thu Dec 19, 2013 11:22 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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duhweecher
Joined: 06 Nov 2013
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| Posted: Thu Dec 19, 2013 10:41 pm Post subject: |
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| thegadfly wrote: |
Why is it so hard to accept that your friend bombed a test? The test ain't rigged -- your friend has some kind of problem. If it were the test, your friend would consistently do poorly on that section -- but going from a 90% (as you claim) to a 50% (as you claim) then back up to 90% again? And having that 50% jump around from one section to another? First instinct is that your friend is straight-up lying to you about past scores, or else seriously misremembering them.
What he "remembers" writing and what he wrote are completely different things, and it is ludicrous that you think you could estimate a score based on what he can recall of his essay.
Now you can certainly argue the validity of the test, or that its targets are not appropriate for a language test, but your energy would be better spent helping your friend learn to take a standardized test, rather than railing against the test itself. |
I know him. I've tested him. To be honest, he comes from the 99 percentile ilk on most standardized tests. And, looking at his scores it's just too fishy.
How can he in one day get a 83 on the advanced essay section and a 20 or something on the intermediate? He's always taken the tests on the same day. Usually scoring high in some areas and low on one area. I'm looking into the case and it just reeks of something odd in the scoring.
Considering that we're talking about one page of writing, I don't see anything "ludicrous" about recall unless you have seriously defective memory issues. I have seen what he rewrote for me on the same essay question and even if it's not exactly the same the scoring was way off. It was not off topic and had few errors. It was about his feelings about racism and they were strong to be honest, but he tied it well to the prompt and I found this ingenious because the prompt didn't ask this directly however his answer was 100% on topic. He completely answered the question just not 100% directly, which is NOT a requirement. I'm assuming the read the first sentence and immediately marked it off topic if the discrimination card wasn't a factor. And to be honest the government even considering such a test for real life matters is an antiquated Confucian practice perhaps, but that doesn't make it right. It just isn't right, yes, even in Korea. (If tradition was an excuse for everything then we'd still have slavery.)
What behooves me most is that he lodged a formal complaint and the completely ignored him. It's not a matter of rigging or not. It's a matter of ethics especially since such a test affects real life matters these days. The government should not be arbitrarily putting people's lives in a couple of knuckleheads' hands workings at a testing site for likely 10,000₩ per hour. What do they have to lose for discriminatory practices?
The issue for me is no longer simply one concerning my friend's score. |
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thegadfly
Joined: 01 Feb 2003
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| Posted: Fri Dec 20, 2013 1:00 am Post subject: |
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| duhweecher wrote: |
| thegadfly wrote: |
Why is it so hard to accept that your friend bombed a test? The test ain't rigged -- your friend has some kind of problem. If it were the test, your friend would consistently do poorly on that section -- but going from a 90% (as you claim) to a 50% (as you claim) then back up to 90% again? And having that 50% jump around from one section to another? First instinct is that your friend is straight-up lying to you about past scores, or else seriously misremembering them.
What he "remembers" writing and what he wrote are completely different things, and it is ludicrous that you think you could estimate a score based on what he can recall of his essay.
Now you can certainly argue the validity of the test, or that its targets are not appropriate for a language test, but your energy would be better spent helping your friend learn to take a standardized test, rather than railing against the test itself. |
I know him. I've tested him. To be honest, he comes from the 99 percentile ilk on most standardized tests. And, looking at his scores it's just too fishy.
How can he in one day get a 83 on the advanced essay section and a 20 or something on the intermediate? He's always taken the tests on the same day. Usually scoring high in some areas and low on one area. I'm looking into the case and it just reeks of something odd in the scoring.
Considering that we're talking about one page of writing, I don't see anything "ludicrous" about recall unless you have seriously defective memory issues. I have seen what he rewrote for me on the same essay question and even if it's not exactly the same the scoring was way off. It was not off topic and had few errors. It was about his feelings about racism and they were strong to be honest, but he tied it well to the prompt and I found this ingenious because the prompt didn't ask this directly however his answer was 100% on topic. He completely answered the question just not 100% directly, which is NOT a requirement. I'm assuming the read the first sentence and immediately marked it off topic if the discrimination card wasn't a factor. And to be honest the government even considering such a test for real life matters is an antiquated Confucian practice perhaps, but that doesn't make it right. It just isn't right, yes, even in Korea. (If tradition was an excuse for everything then we'd still have slavery.)
What behooves me most is that he lodged a formal complaint and the completely ignored him. It's not a matter of rigging or not. It's a matter of ethics especially since such a test affects real life matters these days. The government should not be arbitrarily putting people's lives in a couple of knuckleheads' hands workings at a testing site for likely 10,000₩ per hour. What do they have to lose for discriminatory practices?
The issue for me is no longer simply one concerning my friend's score. |
In Michigan, I just had a slew of students for the ToEFL that were doctors, dentists, and pharmacists. All but one had been practicing in the US for a decade or more (that one that hadn't was just finishing his internship). They signed up for lessons with me because the US had apparently changed its licensing requirements for doctors that earned their degrees outside the US (or maybe it was a Michigan-only change -- not sure) -- my students needed a total score of 95, with at least 25 in writing and 26 in speaking in order to keep their licenses. The guy with 108 total but only 22 in speaking was the most heartbreaking -- it didn't matter that his total was above the cut-off -- the sub-section cut-offs also had to be met....
I totally get what you are saying about a government arbitrarily adding a hurdle that will affect the life and livelihood of someone, in the form of a test that may not be indicative of the person's actual language ability....
I also had one student that rocked the practice tests and individual sessions with me, but blew chunks on the actual tests he took. He had severe test anxiety because the stakes were so high. He had been one of the folks to always score in the 90th percentile before, but definitely wasn't keeping to form on the ToEFL.
I recognized the problem was in him, and tried to help him. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to -- the one time he actually hit 26 on speaking he got a 20 on the writing -- way lower than anything I had seen him do with me. Even so, this pattern indicated a problem with the student, not with the test....
Your Korean is high enough level that you are qualified to be a judge for Korean language exam? Sorry, but I would take the word of a native Korean speaker over a non-native Korean speaker when judging the effectiveness of a writing sample in that language |
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hiamnotcool
Joined: 06 Feb 2012
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| Posted: Fri Dec 20, 2013 6:40 am Post subject: |
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| duhweecher wrote: |
I am Korean and speak the language fluently but since I was born in the US I am considering taking the test just for certification. However, I also do work in migration studies. I'm concerned that people of color and minorities that are often treated poorly in Korea may be further discriminated by this system, I.e. South East Asians, colored, and blacks. I truly wonder how these people are protected in such a system. Being that there are few of any that take this test at any site, discriminating against them would be fairly easy.
In terms of the negative responses, they bother me fairly little because they smell of self-centered know-it-alls who have nothing thusfar positive to add to the discussion. But the fact that people even question the relavancy and extreme scoring strategy is a step in the right direction (your comment is proof of this). Multiculturalism (I honestly hate this word especially when because it butters the real problem: racism) is something that often requires social dissodance and sometimes disobedience. |
Well if you are looking into it I would say that writing section would be the only way really make someone fail. You might find a pattern there. I honestly think some people might have a scheme going on to pass it when they aren't qualified, but I don't feel like there is a conspiracy to fail anyone because of race. I don't want to get involved one way or the other, but I will let you know that the only section I failed was the writing section. That was pretty frustrating for me.
The thing I take issue with is the term "intermediate" and if I was going to bash the TOPIK for one thing that is what it would be. Maybe it's a translation problem and the test administrators don't understand the implications of intermediate in english, but if you can read and understand a passage about carcinogens being found lead based products or something like that in my opinion you are beyond intermediate level. If you can take a college course in only Korean i think that is beyond intermediate level. Level 4 should really be advanced and then 5 and 6 should be called something like super duper extreme advanced or something, I don't know. But then again, there are billions of things I see that I could change as a westerner in Korea but that's because I'm accustomed to seeing things function in a different way. I still hope that if you find any nonsense you can handle it though.
Once I started getting into TOPIK prep it opened my eyes to how education and test taking really works in Korea. I don't think you are really talking about handling discrimination here as much as you are talking about the way a lot of things in Korea work. You mean to tell me my fate is going to be determined by two guys in a cubicle that might totally ditch my essay because they want an early lunch break? Yep. The point of passing the TOPIK is to become a part of the system (whatever that is....) and prove your worth through a Korean source rather than a foreign source. Unfortunately that means hacking it out like a lot of Korean University students and even a lot of Korean professionals have to. I'm sure you are aware how massive testing is here, and in my personal opinion, yeah, the system is rigged to an extent. If you can't get around that with the TOPIK then you will probably experience similar obstacles as you try to make your way through all the other Korean professional and social circles. The Korean system just isn't designed for people that aren't good test takers in my opinion.
I think what I am getting at is that if you modify the TOPIK to accomodate foreigners you are going to take the Korean-ness out of it. As a result, it will no longer carry the same weight with Universities and employers than it did in the past. Most people take it to enter Korean Universities, if they can't take the test, chances are they aren't ready for the type of stuff they are going to have to deal with in that University setting. So as terrible as it is, in my opinion it's a good way to gauge whether or not someone is really ready to dive head first into the real, uncenscored Korean society. |
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PeteJB
Joined: 06 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Fri Dec 20, 2013 1:43 pm Post subject: |
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| TOPIK papers are graded by some of the seniors in Korean education (these people have spent decades teaching Korean), the problem is not the paper it's your friend. Korean tests are notoriously difficult to pass if you don't study for them prior, which I'm guessing your friend hasn't because he was confident in his overall Korean ability. He may have excellent Korean ability, but Korean tests are more geared around 'getting the answers right' than just showing off plain old skills, as is often the case with language tests in the West. There are TOPIK study books updated yearly, I suggest picking up a few. It is possible to improve scores, I've seen it firsthand. |
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duhweecher
Joined: 06 Nov 2013
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| Posted: Sat Dec 21, 2013 10:46 pm Post subject: |
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| PeteJB wrote: |
| TOPIK papers are graded by some of the seniors in Korean education (these people have spent decades teaching Korean), the problem is not the paper it's your friend. Korean tests are notoriously difficult to pass if you don't study for them prior, which I'm guessing your friend hasn't because he was confident in his overall Korean ability. He may have excellent Korean ability, but Korean tests are more geared around 'getting the answers right' than just showing off plain old skills, as is often the case with language tests in the West. There are TOPIK study books updated yearly, I suggest picking up a few. It is possible to improve scores, I've seen it firsthand. |
"TOPIK papers are graded by some of the seniors in Korean education" = false; look into it. 
Language isn't about showing off "plain old skill?" Really? Are you seriously taking the Korea-is-acceptably-different route? (with a straight face) This test (unlike the TOEFL and Western tests) is 100% accepted and sometimes required by the Korean government. To put the test and this problematic situation on par with the Western equivalents is to totally ignore the problem and issue altogether.
This is a problem and the top-down approach would be much more effective than simply saying 'Oh, it must be that one guy's problem'. Or are you perhaps missing the whole point with these messages? |
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anamika
Joined: 16 Aug 2009
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| Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 6:18 am Post subject: |
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| littlelisa wrote: |
Is it possible your friend is writing his essay as though he were writing in English, except translated into Korean? Korean essays are written differently than English ones.
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Where does one find a concise account of the conventions that Korean essays follow? I've asked around about this occasionally over the years, and the responses have been either blank stares or wildly conflicting answers. The funny thing about the OP's comment about his friend's essay, where he mentions that the main point did not become clear until the very end of the essay, is that this matches some descriptions I've heard of a common strategy in Korean essays. |
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spaceman82
Joined: 01 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 4:13 pm Post subject: |
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| I'm not sure if they provide an account of the conventions of Korean writing, per se, but I remember being able to find some information about how TOPIK want their essays written through the TOPIK website itself. If I remember correctly, it was basically write one sentence stating your reply to the prompt ("If I could go back to one past point in my life, I would go back to _____."); start a new paragraph where you discuss one aspect of that topic in 4-5 sentences ("I would go there because ____."); start a final paragraph where you discuss a second aspect of that topic in 4-5 sentences ("When I went back to that point, I would do the following:"). And then that's it--no conclusion or anything was necessary. They also mention that the rating of their essays is based largely on how much advanced vocabulary and advanced grammar you can prove you can use. Your essay really needs to be a vehicle for showing off all the fancy stuff you know, in other words; they don't care about how logical your reasoning is or how well you can prove a point. |
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duhweecher
Joined: 06 Nov 2013
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| Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2013 5:52 pm Post subject: |
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| spaceman82 wrote: |
| I'm not sure if they provide an account of the conventions of Korean writing, per se, but I remember being able to find some information about how TOPIK want their essays written through the TOPIK website itself. If I remember correctly, it was basically write one sentence stating your reply to the prompt ("If I could go back to one past point in my life, I would go back to _____."); start a new paragraph where you discuss one aspect of that topic in 4-5 sentences ("I would go there because ____."); start a final paragraph where you discuss a second aspect of that topic in 4-5 sentences ("When I went back to that point, I would do the following:"). And then that's it--no conclusion or anything was necessary. They also mention that the rating of their essays is based largely on how much advanced vocabulary and advanced grammar you can prove you can use. Your essay really needs to be a vehicle for showing off all the fancy stuff you know, in other words; they don't care about how logical your reasoning is or how well you can prove a point. |
agree. |
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