As an update to my ongoing studying for the TOPIK test, my new weekly routine is now as follows.
Anki
Anki is the new focus on my studying, and something I probably should have started using months (or even years) ago. I’d never used it before because I was not really keen on the drudgery of rote memorization. Anki removes a lot of the drudgery of memorization, though. I use it purely for vocabulary.
The benefit of using Anki is that it manages the administration of memorizing for you. It keeps track of which words need to be repeated soon and which words don’t need to be repeated soon, so that I don’t have to keep track of that. And, best of all, it’s not possible for some vocabulary to slip through the cracks and for me to forget about it.
I also quite like that Anki has an open specification and a good community behind it.
Language exchange
I’ve started leading an English study group at GlobalSeoulMates, which is a language café in Seoul. I also stick around after the English study group to do the Korean-English language exchange so that I can get in a bit of practice with foreigners each week. Due to holidays—going to Japan and now 추석—I have been slacking with this a bit lately.
Books
I bought a couple new books specific to studying TOPIK II. I’ll give a proper review of them at some point, but I can’t do that yet, as I haven’t used them enough yet to determine their efficacy.
Old tests
I’ve been doing most of my studying from old TOPIK tests. I’ve started with the TOPIK I tests until I got comfortable that I could ace them. Well, the reading section is fine, but the listening section…the questions at the end I don’t think I’ll be able to consistently ace. I might have to accept that my listening will always be lagging behind my reading and writing, at least for the purposes of my test next month.
I will be starting to practice from TOPIK II old tests this month.