70 questions · 100 minutes · 200 points
Listening: 30 questions, 40 minutes, 100 points.
Reading: 40 questions, 60 minutes, 100 points.
All questions are multiple choice, taken in a single session.
Level 1: 80+ points out of 200.
Level 2: 140+ points out of 200.
Past papers are the single best preparation — the question patterns repeat every round. Practice the listening audio at real speed and never leave a question blank: there is no penalty for wrong answers.
TOPIK I is one sitting of 100 minutes with no break. Listening comes first, 30 questions in 40 minutes, then Reading, 40 questions in 60 minutes. Each section is worth 100 points, so the paper totals 200. Every question is multiple choice with four options and there is no penalty for a wrong answer.
That last fact decides your strategy in the final minutes: an empty box is worth exactly nothing and a guess is worth a quarter of a mark on average. Nobody should ever hand in a TOPIK I answer sheet with blanks on it.
The audio plays once. There is no replay, no pause, and no way to go back to a question after the recording has moved on. The section climbs steadily: the first questions are single exchanges of two or three lines, the middle is short dialogues in shops, offices and stations, and the last stretch is a short monologue such as an announcement or a voicemail.
The single most valuable habit is reading the four options before the audio starts. Between items you have a few seconds; use every one of them to look ahead rather than to think about the question you just answered. Candidates lose more marks to being one question behind the recording than to not understanding the Korean.
Forty questions in sixty minutes is ninety seconds each, and the early questions do not need ninety seconds. The section opens with signs, labels and single sentences, moves through short notices and advertisements, and finishes with paragraphs of connected text where you match a statement to the passage.
The structure rewards discipline about order. Work straight through the easy front section quickly and bank the time; do not spend four minutes on question 12 while questions 35 to 40, which are worth the same marks each, sit unread at the back.
A total of 80 out of 200 gives Level 1. A total of 140 gives Level 2. There is no separate pass mark for Listening or Reading, so a weak section can be carried by a strong one — 100 in Reading and 45 in Listening is Level 1 just as surely as 72 and 73.
Because Level 2 is the ceiling, TOPIK I is the right choice only if Level 2 is genuinely what you need, or if you are honestly below Level 3. If a full TOPIK II past paper puts you anywhere near 120, register for TOPIK II instead.
Work in complete papers, not in fragments. One full paper a week under timed conditions, followed by a slow review where you write out every word you did not know, will move a score faster than three hours a day of vocabulary apps. The exam tests whether you can operate in Korean at speed; only timed practice trains that.
For Listening, use past papers with the transcript. Listen once without it, answer, then listen again while reading along, then a third time with the transcript closed. The gap between what you heard the first time and what was actually said is the thing you are training away.