Korean Beginners 2023 HSC exam pack

Students should:

• be prepared to communicate a variety of topics relating to their personal world
• elaborate and provide relevant details addressing the questions engaging with the examiner
• use a range of vocabulary, expressions and language structures responding appropriately to the questions
• provide information, express ideas and comment on their personal world
• be prepared to respond to questions from a different perspective
• be prepared to respond to questions that relate to past, present and future aspects of their personal world
• avoid repetition of the same vocabulary, phrases and expressions
• manipulate language to fulfil the requirements of the question
• be prepared to be interrupted by the examiner
• use Korean to ask for repetition and/or clarification of the question.

In better responses, students were able to:

• use a wide range of language accurately and authentically
• provide clear responses to questions with minimal hesitation
• provide relevant answers to unexpected questions rather than giving a rehearsed answer
• respond appropriately with correct pronunciation and intonation, including for English cognates such as 바비큐, 스포츠, 시드니
• use correct tenses in line with the intent of the question
• conjugate and use a variety of verbs across past, present, future tense and conditional forms, for example, 해요, 했어요, 할 거예요, 하고 싶으면
• elaborate and justify ideas and opinions using authentic and personalised examples relating to past, present and future aspects of their personal world
• provide a variety of adjectives, for example, 예쁜, 친절한, 깨끗한, 조용한, 좋은…
• demonstrate a good understanding of various grammatical points including case endings, adjectival endings, and use of modal verbs, for example, 은/는, 이/가, 을/를, 에, 에서, ~로, ~시 ~분, 어려워요, 어려울것 같아요, 공부 해야 해요 …
• develop ideas by using connectives, adverbs of frequency and contrasting connectors, for example, 그래서, 하지만, 하니까, 그러면, 자주, 항상, 가끔, 보통, ~보다 더, 제일, 가장, …. 지만
• add more information or comments to develop conversations.

Areas for students to improve include:

• listening to questions carefully to converse effectively
• avoiding the repetition of the same words or sentence structures
• adding more information using different verb ending from the questions
• providing more personalised information to increase authenticity rather than providing generic responses.

Students should:

• read each question carefully
• make notes in the Candidate’s Notes column on the right-hand side of the page
• transcribe responses onto the lines, using the space provided for each question
• use the lines provided as a guide to the length of the response required
• ensure responses are clear and address all parts of the question
• use their own words and respond in English
• avoid translating text as part of the response.

In better responses, students were able to:

• effectively summarise the main points in the text and justify answers with evidence from the text without simply translating the text
• understand the text holistically and provide answers to reflect this understanding
• understand grammatical structures
• provide detail to answer the question comprehensively.

Areas for students to improve include:

• revising vocabulary related to topic such as, time, date, days of the week, colour
• summarising main points using their own words.

Students should:

• read the whole text(s)
• address all parts of each question
• use the lines, table, chart allocated for the response
• provide all necessary details to respond to the question fully
• support the response with evidence from the text, where required
• use own words rather than a literal translation
• use the dictionary appropriately to find the correct meaning of the word(s) in context.

In better responses, students were able to:

• support their answers by giving relevant examples from the text
• refer to all stimulus texts to justify their response.

Areas for students to improve include:

• revising vocabulary and language structures from the syllabus
• structuring the response logically and writing in comprehensible English
• avoiding repetition of ideas and vocabulary
• avoiding quotes in Korean as part of their response
• understanding the English-loan words, such as 갭이어, 인턴, 핸드 메이드 케이크.

Students should:

• write to the word length required
• address audience, purpose and context required by the question
• apply the conventions of the type of text indicated in the question
• use correct register throughout the response
• use a range of tenses, sentence structures and variety of vocabulary
• avoid repeating the same expressions throughout the response
• use the dictionary carefully to access vocabulary and expressions meaningful to the context of the response
• avoid listing
• edit their work.

In better responses, students were able to:

• include all the relevant ideas from the stimulus text
• sequence and structure their speech logically and coherently
• use a variety of complex language structures correctly
• organise ideas in a logical manner and sequence.

Areas for students to improve include:

• avoiding the inclusion of irrelevant ideas
• avoiding copying segments and/or sentences from the texts in the Reading Section
• avoiding the repetition of the same structures
• avoiding the use of casual form in the speech (Q17,  Q18)
• writing with accurate particles and consistent register
• revising vocabulary ‘this year 올해 / next year 내년’
• writing consistently in the past tense to describe a recent event (Q17).