Reading 23–24 Personal Essay — Feelings + Matching

Reading · Upper-Intermediate

Prioritize item 24 (matching)

This type has you read a single personal essay in which someone recounts their experience or thoughts in a calm, plain voice, then answer two items. Item 23 asks you to choose the feeling that 'I' (the narrator) had at the underlined part, and item 24 asks you to choose the option that matches the content of the passage. Unlike a short story, a personal essay recounts something that actually happened, told plainly from the first-person point of view of 'I.' The focus is less on the event itself than on how the narrator's feelings moved while going through it, so you need to catch the emotional expressions before and after the underlined sentence — '한숨을 쉬다' (to sigh), '가슴이 뭉클하다' (to feel a lump in one's chest), '머뭇거리다' (to hesitate), '얼떨결에' (before one knows it), and the like — without missing them. In particular, even within a single event, the feeling often doesn't flow in just one direction — starting out flustered, say, and later turning into gratitude. So it helps to make a habit of first checking where in the event the underlined part falls. Emotion vocabulary at TOPIK intermediate level and above draws from a fixed set of expressions that come up again and again. If you group and memorize words for embarrassment like '겸연쩍다/머쓱하다,' words for being moved like '뭉클하다/벅차다,' and words for regret like '허탈하다/씁쓸하다,' then even when an unfamiliar word appears, you can at least guess the broad direction of the feeling — positive, negative, or neutral. Item 23 (feelings) requires knowing a lot of this emotion vocabulary, so without preparation it's easy to make a mistake, but item 24 (matching) is solved just by comparing the passage against the options one by one, making it much easier to approach. If you're short on time, it's better to secure item 24 first.

Personal Essay — Feelings + Matching

• 서운하다 — A feeling of mild hurt or disappointment from not receiving as much attention or treatment as expected. It can arise even from a small discrepancy, not just a major wrong.
• 뿌듯하다 — A proud, satisfied feeling after accomplishing something difficult.
• 막막하다 — A hazy, frustrated feeling of not seeing a way to proceed.
• 후련하다 — A relieved, refreshed feeling after something you were worried about or holding in gets resolved.
• 겸연쩍다/머쓱하다 — A shy, awkward feeling of not knowing what to do with oneself. Often used after making a mistake or receiving unexpected praise.
• 뭉클하다 — A feeling of a surge of emotion that makes the chest feel tight and warm.
• 벅차다 — A feeling so full of joy or emotion that it seems to overflow. Often used in the form '가슴이 벅차다' (one's chest swells).
• 허탈하다 — A feeling of one's energy draining away and emptiness setting in when something one worked hard at doesn't go well.
• 씁쓸하다 — A feeling of a lingering, unpleasant aftertaste from something displeasing or regrettable. Used when something isn't pleasant, though not deeply sad.
• 얼떨떨하다 — A dazed, bewildered feeling from suddenly experiencing something unexpected.
• 홀가분하다 — A light, comfortable feeling once a worry or responsibility disappears.
• 착잡하다 — A complicated, unsettled feeling from a mix of thoughts and emotions tangled together.

• A predicate that reveals emotion (to sigh, one's eyes welling up, to hesitate, and the like)
• A connector that signals a shift in feeling (그런데·문득·그제야)
• For matching items, a specific action or time expression in the passage

• First skim the background of the whole passage (who, when, what happened)
• Find the emotion predicate in the two sentences before and after the underlined part
• Match the expression showing the feeling to an option
• For matching items, read the options first, then compare only the corresponding part of the passage

• Looking only at the underlined part and missing the shift in feeling in the surrounding context
• Automatically picking an option as a match just because a word from the passage appears in it — a mismatch in detail still makes it wrong

Upper-intermediate difficulty, but item 24 can be solved by comparison and so is securable. Item 23 can also be caught if you've studied emotion vocabulary.