TOPIK II Writing Question 53: Turn Given Information into a Clear Answer

You can understand every number in a chart and still struggle to write the first sentence.

Should you describe every figure? Explain why something changed? Add your own opinion to make the answer more interesting?

Start with a smaller task: decide what the information actually allows you to say.

What does question 53 ask you to do?

The official TOPIK II writing guide describes question 53 as a task that uses supplied information. Its example requires 200–300 characters and is worth 30 points. Assessment covers task completion, organization, and language use. The guide also emphasizes accurate interpretation and warns against unsupported personal claims.

This article focuses on a PBT-style data-description exercise. Question 53 is not limited to one chart format, so always follow the instructions and information in your actual question. See the official writing guide, pages 3–4.

Read the labels before choosing your sentences

Consider this fictional practice task, created for this article:

A library surveyed 100 users in 2020 and another 100 users in 2025 about their preferred reading format. Describe the results and the changes in 200–300 Korean characters. Do not invent reasons for the changes.

Before writing, identify four things:

• Who: users of one library.
• What: their preferred reading format.
• When: 2020 and 2025.
• Unit: the percentage of respondents.

These details limit what your answer can claim.

The table is about preference, for example. It does not show how many books people finished, how often they read, or which format helped them learn more.

It also describes users of one library. Replacing them with “all Koreans” would change the meaning.

Separate a fact, a comparison, and a guess

All three sentences below sound plausible. Only the first two are supported by the table.

You can describe a change without explaining its cause.

If a different question supplies reasons, include them as the task requires. The habit to build is checking each explanation against the material you were given.

Give each sentence a job

For this particular table, the following sequence works:

1. Introduce the survey.
2. Describe the change in paper-book preference.
3. Contrast it with the change in e-book preference.
4. Quantify the changes.
5. Summarize which format was preferred in each year.

This is a planning aid for our example. A question with three groups, a forecast, or supplied reasons may need a different structure.

Here is one possible answer:

한 도서관이 이용자 100명을 대상으로 선호하는 독서 방식을 조사하였다. 조사 결과, 종이책을 선호하는 사람의 비율은 2020년 70%에서 2025년 45%로 감소하였다. 반면 전자책을 선호하는 비율은 같은 기간 30%에서 55%로 증가하였다. 종이책은 25%포인트 감소하고 전자책은 25%포인트 증가한 것이다. 2020년에는 종이책을 선호하는 사람이 더 많았으나 2025년에는 전자책을 선호하는 사람이 더 많았다.

Meaning in English:

A library surveyed 100 users about their preferred reading format. The proportion who preferred paper books decreased from 70% in 2020 to 45% in 2025. In contrast, the proportion who preferred e-books increased from 30% to 55% over the same period. Paper-book preference fell by 25 percentage points, while e-book preference rose by 25 percentage points. More people preferred paper books in 2020, but more preferred e-books in 2025.

The Korean paragraph contains 232 characters when spaces and punctuation are counted as individual characters. This is a text count for this practice example, not a demonstration of answer-sheet spacing rules.

It is an original practice answer, not an official model answer or a predicted score.

Notice how the Korean carries the comparison

A few expressions do specific jobs in the paragraph:

Practice changing the numbers while keeping the relationship accurate. Then change the relationship itself: both categories rise, one remains unchanged, or the gap narrows.

That tests whether you understand an expression well enough to use it beyond one memorized answer.

Do not confuse percent with percentage points

In our table, e-book preference moves from 30% to 55%.

The difference is:

55 − 30 = 25 percentage points.

Writing that it “increased by 25%” expresses a different calculation. If you are unsure how to describe the size of a change, state the two values directly:

전자책을 선호하는 비율은 30%에서 55%로 증가하였다.

This makes the change clear without introducing an incorrect calculation.

Check the answer against the task

Before finishing this exercise, ask:

• Did I describe preference, rather than reading frequency or sales?
• Did I keep the population limited to the library’s users?
• Are all years, numbers, and directions of change correct?
• Did I cover both formats?
• Did I add any cause that the task never supplied?
• Does each connecting expression match the relationship between the sentences?
• Is the answer within the requested length?

When reviewing your writing, mark the exact sentence that needs correction. “I need better Korean” is too broad to act on. “I used a cause-and-effect expression when the table only showed a contrast” gives you a specific next exercise.

You can use the same approach described in how to review TOPIK mistakes.

Common questions

Should I memorize this paragraph?

Use it to understand the sentence functions. For practice, replace the figures and write again without looking. If the new task contains different information, adjust the structure too.

Should I explain why the figures changed?

Check the prompt. Include reasons when they are supplied or otherwise required by the task; avoid inventing a cause just because it sounds reasonable.

What if I understand the table but cannot express the comparison?

Practice one relationship at a time: increase, decrease, contrast, and reversal. Write a short sentence for each before combining them into a paragraph.

For more practice connecting vocabulary with meaning, read why TOPIK passages can still feel difficult after you learn the words.