Korean Quizzes
Taking a Korean quiz can enrich your learning experience and can even be kind of fun.
Let’s first do a little bit of attitude adjustment and see just how wonderful tests and quizzes really are.
Then, I’ll introduce you to some awesome places online where you can try out some Korean quizzes for yourself.
Contents
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What Are Korean Quizzes Good For?
Checking Your Language Level
Babies don’t get fed steaks, they start on milk first. Language learning is a lot like that. You get linguistic indigestion unless you get materials that are appropriate for you.
Quizzes and tests are often used to determine the level of lessons and instructions a student is capable of receiving. This is important, especially if you’re not an absolute beginner, because you don’t want to be wasting time on lessons that you already know. At the same time, you don’t want to be logging hours on lessons that are way over your head—those that you have no hope of ever understanding until you get a proper grounding on the basics.
Taking a placement test will gauge your Korean so you can go after the lessons appropriate for your level. This way, you stave off boredom (from things being too easy) and discouragement (from things being too hard).
Assessing Mastery of a Topic
Let’s say you’re in the middle of coursework. A quiz or test is vital to assess your comprehension of a topic. You can’t just say to yourself, “Yeah, I got this!” unless you can back it up with receipts. Think of a quiz as feedback that tells you if you’re doing okay, or if you still have some work to do.
Quizzes allow you to actively apply what you’ve learned—which is different from the passive listening or reading of the lesson. Assessments allow you to see what’s “under the hood,” to prove yourself… to yourself and not to anybody else.
Many learners hate tests and quizzes because they give professors and teachers an opportunity to fail them. In reality, quizzes are for you, so you can shore up those areas of Korean where you need more practice. Scoring low on a quiz just means you’re not there yet and you might just need to press “Replay” on all those lessons. And that’s really not a death sentence. (Let’s leave all the K-drama to the pros.)
Teaching You Korean (…Without Being Obvious!)
Language apps today teach through a series of multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank and word-pair exercises. In other words: they teach you through constant mini-quizzes. There’s no obvious “lesson” presentation. It’s a learn-as-you-go kind of thing. There’s just a quick show of pictures, and by doing the exercises enough, you’ll be learning words and phrases without really noticing it.
This is a lot different from the old-school way of doing things where language students would spend a couple of days listening to a teacher deliver a lesson. And lo and behold, at the end of the lesson would await a long quiz or test which you would undoubtedly have to cram for.
With today’s language apps, the quizzes become the lessons themselves. And you learn by completing them. This method has the advantage of gamifying quizzes so that they don’t so sound too intimidating. They’re just one little task after another. Easy peasy!
So, are you now more psyched to try some of those Korean quizzes?
Let’s go!
7 Korean Quiz Resources to Level Up Your Language Skills
1. Test Your Language
The site is a free online platform providing tests for over a dozen major languages.
The Korean quiz is composed of 60 multiple-choice questions that test your basic vocabulary knowledge. If you think you’ve got your basic Korean expressions, colors, animals and Korean questions down pat, head to this site and get yourself tested. (Didn’t mean to sound too “medical” there!)
You don’t need to create an account or give your credit card number. Just give them a name to call you by and you’re off to the races.
The questions will be in English, and the choices are in Hangul. You’re given four options to choose from (A-D) and you click on the correct answer. At times, you’ll be given a picture of an object, say a train, then you’ll get to choose its name in Korean.
After the test, you’ll be asked to provide an email address where they can send the test results. You can take the quiz as many times as you want and you can even print an official-looking certificate for official-looking bragging rights!
2. TOPIK GUIDE
TOPIK, of course, is the most official test of Korean language skills. It stands for “Test of Proficiency in Korean,” and if you want ultimate bragging rights, this is the test to take. The assessment is administered by Korea’s National Institute for International Education (NIIED) under the auspices of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.
The test is intended for non-native speakers who wanted to work and study in Korea and who wanted to prove sufficient comprehension of the language. There’s TOPIK I (for beginners) and there’s TOPIK II (for intermediate and advanced speakers). They test your listening, reading, writing and speaking chops, and depending on the score, you get assigned to certain proficiency levels.
The TOPIK GUIDE website provides you with mock tests that mimic the types you’re going to get on the actual exam. There are mock listening tests for example, where you listen to questions and answer them accordingly. There are also reading quizzes that assess your comprehension of the written form of the language. The site has loads of high-quality tests that you can use to practice for the TOPIK.
Take the mock exams provided and get a feel for things. In addition, TOPIK GUIDE also has excellent blog posts that give tips on how you can ace your TOPIK.
3. FluentU
FluentU is a treasure house of authentic Korean videos each capped by a fun and engaging quiz.
The lessons start with authentic videos—from interviews and movie trailers, to cartoon clips and inspiring talks. All videos come with interactive transcriptions so that you can confidently follow along. Simply click on any word in the transcription and you’ll get a pop-up of everything a language learner can dream of. You’ll get a translation, a definition, an audio clip and even usage examples of that word. So not only are you watching a fun video clip, you’re actually dialed into the vocabulary and grammar insights embedded in every video.
And when you’re confident enough, you can take the “Quiz” portion of the lesson. (Don’t worry, they don’t bite.) The quizzes support everything you’ve learned in the clip, neatly presenting featured vocabulary words through cutting-edge flashcard-style quizzes.
In the quiz section, FluentU makes sure you won’t forget the word by going about every way the vocab can be presented and anchored in your memory.
FluentU provides a whole new level of engaging, immersive language learning through quizzes and video learning.
4. Language Trainers
This site has an awesome Korean quiz composed of a series of increasingly difficult fill-in-the-blank questions. You have five options from which to pick your answer.
A unique feature of this one is that you can choose how long the test is. After answering the first 10 questions, you have a choice of immediately ending the assessment by clicking “Get my test results.” Or you can continue by choosing “Continue with 10 more questions.”
This happens after every 10 items and there are a total of 70 questions that come in increasing difficulty. (For example, the earlier items have Romanizations.)
As mentioned earlier, you have five options for your answer. Well, one of the options is “I don’t know,” which the quiz developers encourage you to use if you honestly don’t know the correct answer. (Guessing could lead to you being correct which could mess up the accuracy of your results.)
After the test, the results will be sent to an email you provided and, depending on your score, you’ll be classified into one of six proficiency levels.
5. 90 Day Korean
This one’s perfect for absolute beginners of Hangul, the Korean writing system. This is a five-minute interactive mini-test called “Hangul Hero Quiz.”
This test takes you through a word-association exercise to help associate Korean consonants with visual objects. For example, “ㅂ” which has the Korean “B” sound will be associated with the word “bed.” (The Korean character looks like a bed, doesn’t it?)
In short, mnemonics will be employed to teach you Hangul.
After being presented with the object mnemonic, you’ll then be asked to look for the Hangul character from a bunch of other Korean consonants. And because you now have a picture in your head, you can easily identify the character from the given options. Cool, huh?
Unfortunately, the test doesn’t go through all of the Hangul characters. But it’s a pretty darn good start.
6. StudyStack
Here you’ll find the mother lode of Korean quizzes and exercises. If you’re looking for a fun way to firm up your Korean vocabulary, this just might be the best place to go.
StudyStack has a cool flashcard app that lets you virtually “flip” a card so you can peek behind what a word like “안녕하세요” means. (It’s “Hello” in Korean.)
You can access an almost unlimited number of vocabulary decks. For example, there’s a 590-card deck for beginners or a 908-card deck on nouns, perfect for someone reviewing for the TOPIK. There are so many topically-focused decks such as those that involve numbers, family, days of the week and more.
But the real power of StudyStack is really the different types of quizzes, games and puzzles that it offers. There’s “Hangman,” “Crossword,” “Matching Pairs,” “Unscramble” and “Chopped.” Here, you can really begin to master any vocabulary topic by running the same words through different types of quizzes and games.
7. uBitto
Ubitto is a language learning platform focused on linguistic competence through experiential and conversational methods.
In line with this, you’ll find quizzes that test you on basic conversational skills such as phrases you need when you’re eating, shopping or lost in Korea. Of course, there are also your staples of basic Korean greetings and common phrases.
You simply pick your answer from the given choices and click on “Check” to see if you’re right. There are no Romanizations to help you along, but hey, that’s a great way to practice and learn.
So there you go.
It wasn’t so bad, was it?
Tests, exams and quizzes are helpful tools for language learners. They prove that fun and learning are two sides of the same coin. So try them out as often as you can.
And your time starts…now!
Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)
