This study investigated the impact of 26 EFL college students’ familiarity levels with the visual information of TOEIC listening test items on test scores and test performance procedure. Data collected measured students’ degree of familiarity with the visuals via a pre-test and their listening test scores, and responses to the post-test questionnaire were analyzed. To analyze the data, one-way ANOVA was conducted to locate the interdependency between the students’ familiarity levels with visuals and their test scores. Results found that there was no statistically significant differences in test scores regardless of the students’ levels of familiarity with the visuals. Additionally, the correlations between the familiarity with the visuals and the students’ test scores were low. However, the students experienced difficulties with unfamiliar visuals while taking the test. These findings indicate that, although test-takers’ familiarity with visuals does not predict their listening test scores, there is a need to tailor the visuals when developing listening test-items.

This study is aims to study the perceptions of test-takers of TOPIK by analyzing the result in a critical assesment perspective. A survey with 98 TOPIK test-takers was conducted, and in-depth interviews with 10 students were followed to delve into their emotional reactions toward the TOPIK test. The results showed that the test-takers of TOPIK considered the test as an instrument to accomplish their purpose such as entering school, continuing studies, or applying for jobs. It was found that the test-takers had suffered from mental pressure, stress when they took the test. Second, the test-takers acknowledged TOPIK to be irrelevant to evaluate practical Korean language skills which are required to stay or study in Korea. Third, most test-takers were able to access information on TOPIK through various ways, yet they recognized the ways to be insufficient and limited. Besides, the respondents expressed discomfort with the inconsiderate management system and environment of the test in particular, such as the announcement of the results, considerable distance to the test venues, and attitude of the examination supervisors. The research proposes the following suggestions to improve TOPIK. First, considering that the purpose of TOPIK is to evaluate Korean language proficiency of test-takers, the questions must be developed for assessing their authentic skills of Korean language. Second, the test environment needs to be enhanced to ensure a complete and equitable test to be conducted. Paying attention to recruiting and educating exam supervisors is also needed as well. Third, it is important to protect the test-takers’ rights over their responsibilities.

Guo, JunHua. 2018. “A Study on Test-takers' Awareness and Attitude about TOPIK Writing”. The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea 26(1). 61~81. The purposes of this study are to investigate how TOPIK students perceive the writing area and analyze it from the point of critical assessment, and to suggest improvement directions of TOPIK writing assessment and Korean writing education. For this, 80 test-takers were conducted a questionnaire survey, and 20 of them were interviewed to elicit their thoughts, attitudes, perceptions about the TOPIK writing. As a result of analysis, the power of high - stakes testings such as TOPIK has a great influence on learners. TOPIK test-takers had difficulty and great anxiety about writing. They thought that to study for TOPIK writing is only for the sake of examination and that extra study was needed to improve their actual writing ability. Although the test-takers showed a willingness to write well in Korean, they had a negative attitude about studying writing. To solve this problem, it is necessary to solve problems of difficulty level in writing assessment such as ambiguous assessment criteria. In addition, it is also need to pay attention to the phenomenon of ‘test-oriented learning’ in Korean writing education, and to study the motivation of interest which attracts Korean learners' attention and let them have a positive attitude about writing.

The purpose of this paper is to examine features of English speaking contests and preparation activities by contest-takers through the Internet, It focuses on the following issues: (1) test-takers' perceptions of tests, (2) appropriateness of test-takers' preparation activities, (3) learners autonomy in the test preparation process. The source of data in this study was collected from the websites hosting contests as well as a portal site (www.naver.com) allowing for information exchange on speaking contests. In the data analysis, key words or phrases were categorized and counted by frequency. It was found that there were perceptional differences between the intent of the testing institutions and students' preparation in the Internet. It is suggested that contest participants need to acquire sufficient information on preparation activities and test-taking strategies from the testing institutions.

종래의 전달매트릭스법과 Frontal 전달매트릭스법에 있어서의 계산의 안정성과 효율성을 검토하고 또 이 두 방법에 선형내삽법을 적용하여 각 방법에 의한 해의 수렴특성을 분석한 결과를 요약하면 다음과 같다. 1. 시행값이 작을 경우 두 방법에 의한 계산의 안정성이나 정확성의 면에서 전혀 차이가 없으나, 시행값이 커질수록 전달매트릭스법에 의한 계산의 오차가 증대해지고, 어느 시행값이 이상이 되면 계산이 불안정해 진다. 2. Frontal 전달 매트릭스법은 시행값의 선택에 큰 제약을 받으며, 적절한 시행값을 선택하지 못 했을 경우, 원하는 해를 구할 수 없다. 3. Frontal 전달 매트릭스법에 의한 시행값-진동수행렬식의 값이 plot에 있어서는 불연속점이 존재하고, 이 불연속점을 경계로 plot는 + 혹은 -의 최대값으로 발산하며 다시 새로운 연속구간이 시작된다. 양단의 경계조건이 같을 경우에는 +에서 -로 바뀌는 연속구간내에, 양단의 경계조건이 다를 경우에는 -에서 +로 바뀌는 연속구간내에 해가 존재한다. 4. 선형내삽법을 적용할 때 근사해로의 수렴에 필요한 반복회수는 Frontal 전달 매트릭스법이 훨씬 많으며 한 시행값에 대한 계산시간도 더 많이 필요하므로 근사해를 구하는 전체적인 계산시간은 연속매트릭스법에 비해 훨씬 더 많이 소요된다. 5. Frontal 연속매트릭스법에 의한 계산은 경계조건이나 중간조건에 따라 매트릭스 요소를 기지와 미지로 재배치해야 하고 또는 시행값의 선택이나 불연속구간의 판별 등 많은 제약이 따르므로 프로그램의 작성과 그 실행이 연속매트릭스법에 비해 훨씬 번거롭다.