In this blog post, I’ll focus on my academic experiences in high school, my extracurricular activities, examples of my acts of kindness and generosity, and my career preparation process.
Academic Experiences and Reflections
During high school, I enjoyed language subjects and focused my studies particularly on literature. When learning modern poetry and novels in regular classes, I was highly focused and actively participated in class; however, when encountering non-fiction texts such as explanatory or argumentative essays, I often found them boring and would even doze off. While the grammar section required logical thinking, I had no major difficulty solving problems as long as I memorized basic spelling and phonetic rules. On the other hand, non-literary passages could not be tackled through simple memorization; they required critical thinking to deeply understand the content of the passage and grasp the examiner’s intent, which caused me a great deal of difficulty.
To develop my non-literary reading comprehension skills, I chose to study through the classics. The “classics” I refer to here are the masterpieces recommended for college entrance exams and essay preparation; I focused on reading texts that were highly likely to appear as non-literary reading passages on exams. For example, I sought out and read Machiavelli’s ‘The Prince’, Adam Smith’s ‘The Wealth of Nations’, Laozi’s ‘Tao Te Ching’, and various other classics that served as the background for the essays introduced in my textbooks. Of course, these classics are so voluminous that it was difficult to read them thoroughly from beginning to end.
So I made full use of the essay-writing special lecture series offered by my school. The essay-writing special seminar was held for two hours a week after school. The instructor provided handouts containing excerpts from classical texts that could be used as non-fiction passages and guided us in reading the material and writing essays based on it. The instructor specified the key sections of each classic by page number, and I studied by extracting and summarizing the important parts based on those handouts.
Studying this way allowed me to grasp the overall context of the entire book and improved my ability to quickly identify the key arguments and logical flow within the passages. As a result, my non-fiction reading comprehension skills improved, which greatly helped me understand College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT)-style passages and analyze the intent behind the questions. The experience of learning conceptual backgrounds and logical structures through classical literature marked a major turning point in my approach to studying non-fiction.
Description of Major School Activities and Reflections
During my sophomore year of high school, I prepared for external certification exams as part of my Korean language studies. I began preparing for the KBS Korean Language Proficiency Test and the Korean Language Proficiency Certification Test (ToKL) on my own, but studying alone was inefficient, and my scores did not improve as much as I had hoped. In particular, the Korean Language Proficiency Certification Test is divided into specific sections and features relatively difficult questions, so systematic preparation was necessary. Since there was significant overlap with the Korean section of the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), I decided that proper preparation would be very helpful, so I joined a prep class.
Our school held creative elective classes during the 8th period following the 7th period, and the external exam prep class was scheduled during this time slot. I joined the Korean Language Proficiency Test prep class to study systematically and organized a study group with friends who were at a similar academic level. To make the most of the prep class time, we would meet during breaks to discuss our plans, share study materials and practice problems we had created, and adjust our study schedules.
The exam was broadly divided into sections on vocabulary, grammar, and language regulations, and sections on communication skills, including listening, reading, and writing. Our study group focused on vocabulary, grammar, and language regulations. While this section required memorization, the sheer volume of material made it difficult to memorize efficiently on our own. So, we divided the entire material among ourselves, summarized our assigned sections, and shared our notes to complement each other’s learning.
We supplemented our preparation for the communication skills section through the 8-period preparatory class. The Korean language teacher personally analyzed past exam questions to create study materials and conducted classes by having students work in groups to solve problems, thereby developing their problem-solving skills. The teacher recommended that we cover the language regulations through our study group and practice listening on our own, while providing supplementary guidance for the reading and writing sections, considering that these questions tend to be time-consuming.
Group discussions allowed us to help one another and exchange questions, which helped maintain our motivation, and I resolved any personal difficulties through one-on-one Q&A sessions with the teacher. Although I initially scored a Level 4 on the certification exam, thanks to systematic preparation and the help of the study group, I scored 165 points and achieved a Level 3. After studying for a few more months, I reached my goal of Level 2. Through this process, I truly experienced the power of collaboration and the importance of consistent preparation.
Examples of Consideration, Sharing, and Cooperation, and My Reflections
During my freshman year of high school, I developed a close relationship with my homeroom teacher, and before she was transferred to another school, she gave me the fish tank and fish she had been keeping in the faculty office as a gift. In my sophomore year, I kept the fish tank in the classroom and cared for the goldfish as if it were our class’s little mascot. Many of my friends loved the fish, but actually maintaining the aquarium every day was a lot of work.
It was especially easy for gaps to appear in the aquarium’s care during long holidays like Chuseok. Feeling a sense of responsibility as the fish’s owner, I had fed them and cleaned the water and rocks before the holiday, but when I checked the aquarium after the holiday ended, the fish were nearly dying and the water was contaminated. The fish had fallen ill due to the water being contaminated with waste.
My classmates and I worked together as one to take emergency measures to save the goldfish. We quickly cleaned the tank, replaced the water and rocks, and contacted a nearby veterinary clinic to purchase medication to improve water purification and treatment for the sick fish. As a result, the goldfish recovered, and by solving the problem together with my classmates, I developed a deep sense of respect for life and a strong sense of responsibility.
This experience went beyond simply caring for an animal; it taught me the value of cooperation. It was impressive to see how our individual small contributions came together to overcome the crisis, and how our combined efforts saved a life. Through the process of solving problems together, I learned the importance of consideration and communication.
Efforts and Preparation Related to Motivation for Application and Career Plans
Through preparatory classes and study group activities, I addressed my weaknesses and discovered the joy of creating questions while working with friends to design problems and solve them together. I found the process of creating questions with friends—adjusting difficulty levels and selecting passages—to be the most engaging, and this led me to my career goal. I have set a goal to work as a researcher who studies Korean language textbooks and develops test items.
I believe that creating test items and developing textbooks requires not only a solid academic foundation in the relevant fields but also an understanding of assessment theory and statistics. First, I plan to solidify my foundation by taking advanced Korean language courses at the university level and separately enrolling in education courses to learn theories related to assessment design. In particular, I intend to focus intensively on educational statistics to analyze the reliability and validity of test items and develop the ability to design “well-crafted items” that accurately measure learning abilities.
In the long term, I intend to pursue a master’s degree in Korean Language Education at a graduate school of education to enhance my expertise, and subsequently work in the fields of Korean language textbook research and test item development. My experiences with reading, essay writing, and test preparation during high school have laid the foundation for these goals, and I will continue to strive to bridge theory and practice.
