Students who received a Topik Level 6 give advice on how to earn the highest score

Soh Jue Shuen, a master’s student at Sungshin Women’s University, missed getting a Level 6, the highest level, in the Test of Proficiency in Korean (Topik) by just one point — but she finally got Level 6 in 2024 after long, grueling study sessions at the library, where she buried herself in past exam examples.

Achieving a high score on the Topik is rewarding, but the feat is anything but easy.

Of the 4,200 surveyed foreigners in Korea who received a Topik score in 2025, only 13.3 percent managed to get a Level 6, according to data from the Ministry of Justice. Level 6 can be earned by scoring 230 points or higher out of the total 300.

Those who got Level 2 comprised the largest share of respondents at 21.8 percent, followed by Level 4 at 19.4 percent, Level 3 at 17.7 percent, Level 5 at 15.8 percent and Level 1 at 12.1 percent.

The Topik I covers Levels 1 and 2, and the Topik II encompasses the rest.

While many Korean universities require international applicants to hold a Topik score of at least Level 3 or 4, Level 6 typically comes with additional advantages. For example, Korea University, Ewha Womans University and Sungkyunkwan University offer one-time scholarships to those with Level 6. 

Additionally, both the D-10 job seeker visa and F-2 residency visa follow a point-based system, and applicants who receive a Level 5 or 6 are automatically granted 20 points out of the total 80 needed to apply for the visas.

“For those outside Korea, I would say it’s best to study by using past papers,” said Soh. “And it can feel very lonely when you are studying by yourself [while] abroad, so meet other students who want to study [for] the Topik and motivate each other. For people [in Korea] who want to get Level 6 [...] my advice would be to take advantage of free classes at foreign resident and global village centers.”

The Korea JoongAng Daily sat down with three Level 6 holders — Soh from Malaysia; Elsha, a Hongik University master’s student from Indonesia, who got the score twice in 2023 and again this year; and Jale Azizova from Azerbaijan, who works in the overseas sales department of an aesthetic cosmetics company and got a Level 6 in 2023 — to discuss how they prepared for the exam.

Studying for the exam

When studying for the Topik, many people first turn to textbooks.

However, working with past exam papers — which are available on the official Topik website — can be equally, if not more, effective, according to Azizova, as every exam tends to repeat the styles of questions and vocabulary.

“There are questions that underline a sentence in the text and ask how the [character] would feel,” said Azizova regarding the reading section of the test. “The question tends to ask you to choose from words about feelings like 'painful,' 'disappointing' and 'proud.' If you went through several past papers, you'll see that there [are] around 15 words that appear a lot. I would write all of them down and learn them.”

Similarly, for question 21 on the reading section, test-takers are given a passage with a blank space and asked to choose which verb fits best.

Azizova went through multiple past papers and wrote down recurring phrasal verbs, such as  nuni nopda, which refers to having high standards, and memorized them.

But to earn higher than Level 1 or 2, one must not simply memorize words and their definitions from a vocabulary list but instead understand them in context.

“I would look at past tests and find words that I don’t know, then look up the meaning and understand it within the paragraph,” said Soh. “Let’s say you learned the word 'performance.' But people speak fast in real conversations, and it can be hard to grasp the full meaning when you just know that one word. But if you learn words in context and link the word 'performance' to other words like 'singer,' it becomes easier to follow and find the main idea [of the text].”

Preparing for the listening section may seem simple, but the problem is the limited time given to answer the questions.

As a result, Azizova recommends intentionally increasing the speed of the audio while preparing for the exam.

“When you do practice tests using videos on YouTube, you can set the playback speed to 1.25 times,” said Azizova. “It may feel difficult at first and even discouraging, but once you get used to the speed and take the real exam, it will be very easy to catch what the speakers are talking about.”

Many Korean learners self-study, but attending actual classes can also be helpful.

Azizova took a course at the Gangnam Global Village Center, where she solved mock tests to familiarize herself with the exam’s structure and discover her weaknesses. Seoul has the Seoul Global Center and seven Global Village Centers that offer Topik classes free of charge, and regions such as Busan, Daejeon and North Jeolla do the same through their foreign resident centers. Universities also often offer such classes to their international students.

Even academies abroad offer Topik classes, which Elsha took advantage of when she was in Indonesia.

But when she took the test again this year, she self-studied.

“When I was preparing for my second Topik exam, I was in graduate school, and there wasn’t much time to study. But I watched a lot of videos, listened to the [Korean] radio and wrote in my diary in Korean,” she said. “I also like reading Korean books, and comparing my experience with the two Topik exams that I took, I think the reading section became less difficult because of that. When I was taking my first exam, there were parts of the reading that I couldn’t understand. But now, I’ve become more comfortable reading the passages.”

Essay question

If there’s one section that differentiates those who get Level 6 and those who don’t, it's the writing section. Specifically, question 54, known as the long essay and worth 50 points alone, gives many students a headache.

Question 54 asks test-takers to write their opinion — between 600 and 700 characters — about a given topic. The essay is written on a wongoji, or grid paper. For this section, it is paramount to be well-versed in Korean spacing, grammar and vocabulary.

“At first, I almost gave up on the essay,” said Elsha. “It’s stressful to prepare for, and time management is important. There are many students who choose to focus more on the listening and reading sections rather than spend too much time on the essay.”

Test-takers also need to learn Topik-specific rules to use wongoji, such as placing two digits in a single square or using one punctuation mark per square.

“My teacher would give us passages and ask us to copy them onto the grid paper as homework,” said Elsha. “By practicing like that, I got used to things like how to space out words. You can lose a lot of points because of spacing mistakes, and you can prevent that from happening if you pay close attention to rules like how to write numbers.”

For those studying on their own, a number of books contain guides specifically for the essay. Among the options, many test-takers recommend “All About Korean Topik Writing” (2019).

“The book was a lifesaver for the writing section, and it explains how to answer questions with graphs very well,” said Soh, referring to question 53, which asks test-takers to write a short response after interpreting a graph. “It breaks the questions down by different types of graphs that can be featured, such as pie charts and others. The book also gives you multiple sample answers for the essay, so you can get a good idea of how you need to answer the question.”

Soh also encouraged students to read the news, as question 54’s topic may be focused on current events and issues, from AI to crude oil and population trends. As a result, staying informed and knowing your stance on certain matters are key.

“When I took Topik as an internet-based test [IBT], there was a question with a passage about the seatless subway cars, and I was very surprised because it was very recent news at that time,” said Soh. “I think you might be able to see questions about more recent news for the IBT, but the paper-based test might be generic. I would definitely recommend reading the news and opinion-based pieces.”

Test-taking strategies

The exam for the Topik II takes three hours to complete — comprising a one-hour listening section, a 50-minute writing section and a 70-minute reading section — meaning that time and energy management are crucial, especially during the reading section, or the last stretch of the exam. 

According to Elsha, changing the order in which you approach questions can be an effective strategy.

“For the reading section, I start with the questions at the end and then move to the beginning,” said Elsha. “The later questions require more energy, so if I tackle those first and then come back to the earlier ones, the questions at the front feel easier.”

Questions toward the end tend to feature longer passages and ask test-takers to identify the main idea or the author’s perspective. But earlier questions are simpler and require test-takers to choose the most appropriate word that would go in a sentence.

This strategy can also be applied to the writing section, which consists of short-answer questions; questions in which test-takers must accurately understand a graph to answer correctly; and the long essay.

“If I look at the essay question and know I can answer that first, I do the essay part first,” said Soh. “But of course, I make sure I have 10 or 20 minutes to do the front part.”

Additionally, for the reading section, when faced with a long passage, rather than reading the text first and then checking the multiple-choice options, doing the reverse can make things easier.

“When I read the passage first and then the answers, I have to go back to the text again to check where and how those answers are mentioned,” said Azizova. “But when I read the answers first, I can get a rough idea of the text and also know what I have to look for. It’s a huge time-saving method for me.”

Listening is another section that requires time management, as the audio doesn’t wait for test-takers.

The audio plays once through question 20, and twice from question 21 onward. Each clip is followed by two questions.

If listening is one of the easier sections, it can be good to try to answer both questions on the first play, then skim the next set of questions in the remaining time to prepare.

“After finding the answer to one question, I use any available time before the next audio starts to quickly check the next question,” said Elsha. “If you try to listen to the audio and read the question at the same time, you can end up missing both. But if you even quickly check what the question is and then listen to the audio, it becomes a bit easier.”

BY LEE TAE-HEE [[email protected]]