My 32nd Topik experience

On October 20, I took the 32nd Intermediate Topik exam at Hong Bang University in the afternoon. This was the third time I had taken Topik, so I was not anxious. Other friends were so nervous that they kept asking me about the Topik experience. I was so familiar with the Topik test, but today I had a slightly different experience.

First, when the teachers distributed the OMR pens, I eavesdropped a friend asking the Korean teacher about using the ballpoint pens for the writing test. The teacher answered that we just needed to use OMR pens for the multiple choice and we could use the pencils or ballpoint pen for the short answers and essay. I was a little confused. Last time when I took the Topik test, I always use the OMR pen which the teachers gave to do the test from the multiple choice to the essay section. And the instruction printed on topik papers also said that “답안지의 이름,수험번호 및 정답의 기입은 컴퓨터용 펜을 사용하여 주십시오”(Use the optical mark reader(OMR) pen only). Therefore, I became very bewildered. The OMR pen slowed down my speed of writing, so I really wanted to use the ballpoint pen to write. I asked the teacher about using the ballpoint pens for the essay part to confirm again. He didn’t answer me in person but answered out loud in front of the class “You must use OMR pen to mark the answers, but you can also use the pencils or ballpoint pens for short answers and the essay”.

I decided to use the ballpoint pen to write essay. But I made too many mistakes, so I kept asking the teacher for the correction pen. I think I should have prepared a correction pen for myself and maybe I should have used the pencils so that I could erase my mistakes easily and didn’t bother the teacher. However, from my own experience, I will never use the pencil for the exam because the writing by the pencil can be easily erased, so it is not safe to write by the pencil in the exam. I remember when taking the university entrance exam, every student was forbidden from writing by the pencils on the test paper. Even when drawing the diagram or picture, we must use the ballpoint pen.

The vocabulary and writing part were quite easy. I was only confused about two questions. First, when I had to find the antonym of the word “깨끗하다”(clean), the word (더럽다) popped up in my mind, but the four answers didn’t include the word “더럽다”, so I had to use my guessing ability and finally picked the word “지저분하다”. Secondly, when we had to make a full sentences from”예매를 하다 /볼 수 있다 /그 영화는 인기가 많다”, suddenly my mind went blank and I couldn’t do that question. If the question is “그 영화는 인기가 많다/예매를 하다 /볼 수 있다 “, it will be easy for me to make a full sentence. Therefore, I moved on to the essay part. The question was to write about a thing that we wanted to do but couldn’t. Although I didn’t prepare for this topic, I managed to write about a 600-character essay. Then I came back to the confusing question. There was only 2 minutes left and I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. Suddenly, an idea crossed my mind and I hurriedly wrote down “예매를 해야 볼 수 있을 정도로 그 영화는 인기가 많다”. Then we took a short break.

 I was really annoyed when Hongbang University organized some celebrations AGAIN. Last year, that university organized Topik exam and the Halloween celebration at the same time. Now this year, that university organized Topik exam and the celebration for the Vietnamese women day at the same time. They opened the music and sang too loud, which affected us.  >”< Some of us had to report this issue to the professor to make the music stop.

The listening test this time was more difficult than the previous ones. Especially, the man in the audio not only had a bass and hoarse voice but also talked too fast, which made me feel difficult to listen to. The reading part was quite challenging, but I managed to read and do all of the questions in time. However, there were too many new words. =.= I had difficulties reading some paragraphs about 세금, 신약, 복제약, 진주조개, 매개 공간. When there was 15 minutes left, the university started to play the music and some students sang out loud again, which distracted us from doing the test. I really can’t bear this university. 

Overall, I feel that I did the Topik better than last year, especially the writing part.

 Update on my results:

https://swanlake1701.wordpress.com/2013/12/03/my-32th-topiks-result/