Yesterday night, I had checked the results for the 98th TOPIK Exam which I had taken on Jan 19 earlier this year...

The results?

—were beyond any of my expectations.

I received 5급 (Level 5 out of 6) and the reason why I thought this was crazy was:

While this exam typically required months or even years of prep, I literally had 14 days to study.

Let me repeat.

14 days.

I still think it was partially by some sort of luck from the heavens and the skies that day, but I thought it might be helpful to outline my study process, especially for future TOPIK takers with a tight deadline!

A Bit About Me

Before I dive into this, I'll let you know that I've lived in Korea for about 1.5 years now, but I didn't take a Language Program nor study the language before moving here, so I never intensively studied Korean.

This was also my first ever time taking any sort of TOPIK test (damn... as you can see, I had also thought I was cooked :'0).

I'm an Indonesian undergraduate student studying in an All English-Track major, and I did study Basic & Lower Intermediate Korean upon entering uni, so could read and write & knew several grammar structures.

When I decided to take the TOPIK II Exam, it was simply a fun challenge I wanted for myself. I didn't necessarily need the certificate as my graduation requirements didn't need it— so I think that helped lower the pressure & all of my expectations!

FYI. There is TOPIK I and TOPIK II; TOPIK I is relatively Beginner Korean. There is a Listening & Reading Section, with your total score allowing you to get a Level 1 or 2 fluency,

while the TOPIK II exam covers Intermediate-High Korean. There is Listening, Reading & Writing, allowing you to gain scores for a Level 3 to 6 Fluency.

I also watch aloot of Korean dramas on the regular, and I am not ashamed to say they're my therapy healing sessions ☺️⭐️ I'm highly sure my Listening Section was helped abundantly by my K-Drama Experience ahah

I made several Korean friends outside my major and worked part-time jobs, so I was adequately fluent in speaking and that was what gave me the outlandish confidence to cram for the TOPIK II Exam...

So TOPIK 5: How in the actual World did I Study for 14 Days?

Okay so now we come to what I actually did. 😭

🌪️💥 My Conditions...

EXAM D-DAY : 19th January, 2025

Started Studying on : 26th December, 2024 — 4th January, 2025

I had the Audacity to give myself Break Time 😭✋ : 5th January — 14th January, 2025 (My Family came to Korea for Holiday so I completely removed TOPIK from my mind 😀)

Continued Studying on D-4 : 15th January — 18th January, 2025

Was it a good idea to go on a family trip the week before my exam? Probably Not.

Was the trip fun though? Absolutely 🥰.

STUDY METHOD :

Considering the sliver of time I had, I focused only on three main things:

>> STRUCTURE (Getting Very Familiar with the Exam Structure & What Questions come out)

>> PRACTICE (Knowing How to Solve each Question Type)

>> SPEED (Especially Practicing how to Read Fast)

Further down this article, I'll explain what study resources I used. Most of these are exactly what my older sister also used; She had studied for 2-3 months and also got a TOPIK Score of Level 5— so there must've been atleast something right about these methods 🤔.

TIMELINE :

1. Listening & Reading Section: Textbooks

I used these two Books to study mainly the Listening & Reading parts, and also to get to know the general structure:

To note, I did not go through every page/chapter of these 2 thick resources; I just used them to familiarize myself with WHAT KIND of questions would come out for each question number.

The TOPIK Paper-Based Test is surprisingly a lot more consistently structured than I had expected. For example, Q.1 - 2 in the Listening Section was always going to show images that you have to match according to the Listening Track's conversation.

I basically read the descriptions for each Question Style from Q.1 - 30 for Listening & Reading (I didn't attempt much beyond Q.30 because I thought it would be too difficult).