QCAA Korean (SEE) study guide
QCAA Korean (SEE) · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The Senior External Examination in Korean is one subject within the Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority's Senior External Examination (SEE) program, a set of individual subject examinations offered to eligible Year 12 students and adult learners. It is designed for students in their final year of senior secondary schooling who cannot access certain subjects at their school because of timetable clashes or subject availability, and for adult students (17 years or older, or students under 17 who are eligible) who want credit towards a QCE, to meet tertiary entrance or employment requirements, or to study for personal interest. The QCAA Korean (SEE) study guide has 4 sections and about 1,327 words.
01Listening: Preparing for the QCAA Korean SEE
The listening component tests whether you can extract meaning from spoken Korean under time pressure, not whether you can transcribe every syllable. Candidates must understand the core grammar that carries meaning in speech: tense and aspect markers (-았/었-, -겠-, -고 있다), honorific forms (-(으)시-, -께서, -께), connectives that signal contrast or cause (-지만, -는데, -아서/어서, -니까), and speech-level endings (합니다체, 해요체, 해체, 반말).
353 words, about 2 min02Reading: Comprehension Strategies for Korean Texts
Reading in the SEE requires you to identify main ideas, supporting detail, purpose, and tone across text types: notices, emails, diary entries, advertisements, short articles, and conversational exchanges. You must recognise the grammatical glue that organises information - topic and subject markers (은/는 vs 이/가), object marker 을/를, connectives (-고, -지만, -면서, -기 때문에), and nominalisers (-기, -(으)ㅁ, -는 것).
334 words, about 2 min03Writing: Producing Accurate and Register-Appropriate Korean
Writing tasks assess whether you can produce coherent Korean text for a stated audience and purpose: a personal email, a diary entry, a short opinion paragraph, or a message to a teacher or friend. You must control sentence structure, verb endings, and register.
322 words, about 2 min04Speaking: Fluency, Register, and Interaction
The speaking component tests your ability to communicate meaning interactively: giving a short prepared or semi-prepared talk, responding to questions, and sustaining a conversation. Assessors reward comprehensibility and appropriate register over flawless accent.
318 words, about 2 min