Writing Skills
What you must know
Writing tasks require a short message, diary entry, email or description of about 50-120 words depending on the task. Marks come from task fulfilment, range of vocabulary and grammar, accuracy, and appropriate register. You need reliable control of 해요체 for friendly writing and 합쇼체 for formal notices, plus connectives (그리고, 그런데, 그래서, 왜냐하면), time expressions, and basic honorifics when writing about elders.
Planning routine
- Underline the task requirements - who you are writing to, the three or four points to include, and the register.
- Plan one sentence per point before writing.
- Draft with safe structures you control: 저는 …에 갔어요. 그리고 …을/를 했어요. 정말 재미있었어요.
- Check particles and verb endings last, not first.
Traps
- Register errors: mixing 해요체 and 반말 in the same text loses accuracy marks.
- Omitted content points: each required point carries marks; missing one caps your score.
- Particle slips: 을/를 after objects, 에 after times and destinations, 에서 for actions.
- Tense consistency: past events need -았/었어요 throughout.
- Irregular verbs: 듣다 → 들었어요, 살다 → 살았어요, 만들다 → 만들었어요.
- Over-long sentences invite errors; two short correct sentences beat one broken long one.
Worked example
Task: write a diary entry (about 60 words) about a weekend trip, including place, transport, food and feeling. Model plan:
- Place: 토요일에 친구하고 부산에 갔어요.
- Transport: 기차로 갔어요. 두 시간 걸렸어요.
- Food: 해운대에서 회를 먹었어요. 아주 맛있었어요.
- Feeling: 날씨가 좋아서 정말 즐거웠어요.
Each sentence carries one content point and one safe structure, so accuracy stays high.
Rule of thumb
Write only what you can check. Before submitting, read your text once only for particles and verb endings - that single pass recovers most lost marks.