OPIc levels in one table: NL to AL, with IM split three ways
A Korean OPIc result is one of nine English levels. From the bottom: Novice Low (NL), Novice Mid (NM), Novice High (NH), Intermediate Low (IL), IM1, IM2, IM3, Intermediate High (IH) and Advanced Low (AL). The level chart on the opic.or.kr 시험소개 page stops at Advanced Low, and under it Multicampus writes: "OPIc은 IM등급을 세분화하여 제공합니다. (IM3 > IM2 > IM1)". In plain English: OPIc subdivides the IM grade, and IM3 is the highest of the three. There is no score and no pass mark. ACTFL-certified raters listen to all 12 to 15 of your answers and give one level for the whole test, judged against the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines 2024. The step this page spends most time on is IM2 to IH, and it is not about rarer words: it is about telling a story in the past, in connected sentences, on most questions, including the ones you did not expect.
The table below puts the official chart next to what each level sounds like in the test. The third column is our translation of the short Korean "Performance Feedback" line that opic.or.kr prints for each level, read on 21 October 2026. The fourth column is TalkDrill's reading, not official wording.
| Level | ACTFL major level | What opic.or.kr says (our translation of the Korean) | What it sounds like in the test (TalkDrill reading) |
|---|---|---|---|
| AL | Advanced | Keeps verb tenses consistent when narrating events and uses a range of adjectives to describe people and things. Uses conjunctions in the right places, so sentences hold together and paragraphs are well built. Proficient enough to explain and solve a problem even in an unfamiliar, complicated situation. | Stories that stay in the past from start to finish. Role-play problems solved with options. The unexpected question answered as fully as the prepared ones. |
| IH | Intermediate | Faced with complicated situations that are unfamiliar or unexpected, usually explains events and solves problems effectively in most of them. Says a lot and uses varied vocabulary. | Connected answers of a minute or more on most questions, but one or two stories slide back into the present, or one answer thins out. |
| IM3, IM2, IM1 | Intermediate | On everyday topics and in situations familiar to them, can speak naturally by putting sentences one after another. Tries out different sentence patterns and words, and can keep a conversation going for a long time if the listener is a little patient. | Steady sentences on your survey topics. Stories told as a list of events. Which of the three steps you get depends, in our reading, on how much you say and how connected it is. |
| IL | Intermediate | Can speak in sentences on everyday topics. Can take part in a conversation and speaks with confidence on topics they like. | Short, simple sentences on familiar things, long pauses, answers that stop after two or three sentences. |
| NH | Novice | Can speak in sentences on most everyday topics. Can ask and answer questions about personal information. | Short sentences, many of them learned by heart, mostly in the present. |
| NM | Novice | Can speak using words and sentences already memorised. | Memorised phrases, little new language. |
| NL | Novice | At a limited level, can speak by listing English words. | Single words. |
- Advanced Low: 사건을 서술할 때 일관적으로 동사 시제를 관리하고, 사람과 사물을 묘사할 때 다양한 형용사를 사용한다. 적절한 위치에서 접속사를 사용하기 때문에 문장간의 결속력도 높고 문단의 구조를 능숙하게 구성할 수 있다. 익숙하지 않은 복잡한 상황에서도 문제를 설명하고 해결할 수 있는 수준의 능숙도다.
- Intermediate High: 개인에게 익숙하지 않거나 예측하지 못한 복잡한 상황을 만날 때, 대부분의 상황에서 사건을 설명하고 문제를 효과적으로 해결하곤 한다. 발화량이 많고, 다양한 어휘를 사용한다.
- Intermediate Mid: 일상적인 소재 뿐 아니라 개인적으로 익숙한 상황에서는 문장을 나열하며 자연스럽게 말할 수 있다. 다양한 문장형식이나 어휘를 실험적으로 사용하려고 하며, 상대방이 조금만 배려해주면 오랜 시간 대화가 가능하다.
These Korean lines are Multicampus's short summaries. The official definitions are ACTFL's, and they are longer and more useful; the next two sections put them in plain words. One oddity worth knowing: in translation, the Korean line for Novice High sounds stronger than the one for Intermediate Low. Do not read anything into it. ACTFL's ladder is clear that every Intermediate level sits above every Novice level.
Why Korea splits IM into IM1, IM2 and IM3
ACTFL's own scale has one Intermediate Mid. The split is Multicampus's: the opic.or.kr 시험소개 page says it "provides the IM grade subdivided" and ranks the steps IM3 above IM2 above IM1. That is all the official page says. It does not publish separate descriptions for IM1, IM2 and IM3, and it does not say how a rater decides between them. Anyone who gives you an official-sounding rule such as "IM2 needs 1 minute 30 seconds per answer" is guessing.
What we can say, from the ACTFL Guidelines, is where the whole of Intermediate Mid sits. ACTFL defines the three sublevels of any major level like this:
| Sublevel | ACTFL's definition (quoted) | What it means for IM and IH (TalkDrill reading) |
|---|---|---|
| Low | "Baseline performance at the level." They "demonstrate little ability to carry out communication functions that typify the next-higher major level." | IL: you can create sentences, but almost nothing Advanced yet. |
| Mid | "Solid performance at the level." They "may also exhibit partial ability to carry out communication tasks that typify the next-higher major level." | IM: solid sentences, with some Advanced moves (a past story, a comparison) appearing in part. IM1 to IM3 spread across that range. |
| High | "Performance with quality and quantity at the level." They are "capable of functioning much of the time at the next higher major level, but they are unable to sustain language at that level without evidence of difficulty." | IH: the Advanced tasks happen much of the time, not always. |
So, in our reading, IM3 is "partial ability" at its strongest and IH is "much of the time". The practical gap between them is how many of your answers are real paragraph-length narration and description, and whether that holds on the questions you did not choose. Note that YBM does something similar for TOEIC Speaking: its 레벨과 점수 page says Intermediate Mid is reported as "Mid1 < Mid2 < Mid3". The names match, but the tests do not. An OPIc IM2 and a TOEIC Speaking Mid2 are different results from different tests, and we found no official conversion between them. Our OPIc vs TOEIC Speaking page explains why.
What ACTFL says each level can do, in plain words
ACTFL judges speaking on four criteria it calls FACT: Functions and tasks (what you can do with the language), Accuracy, Context and content (the situations and topics you can handle) and Text type (words, sentences, paragraphs). Multicampus names the same four areas for OPIc. The rule that decides every rating is this sentence from the 2024 Guidelines: to be rated at a level, a speaker "must demonstrate sustained ability to meet each of the FACT criteria for that level in all of the communication situations that pertain to that level, including situations that the individual has not encountered previously". Two words do the work: sustained and all. A level is the one you hold on every question, not the one you reach on your best one.
| Level | Key ACTFL phrases (2024 Guidelines, quoted) | In plain words |
|---|---|---|
| Novice (NL, NM, NH) | "words, phrases, simple sentences, and questions that they have encountered, rehearsed, and can recall" | You say what you have learned by heart. Change the question slightly and the answer breaks. |
| Intermediate (IL to IH) | "ability to use language creatively"; "sentence-level language, ranging from discrete sentences to short strings of sentences, typically in present time" | You build your own sentences about your own life, mostly in the present. |
| Intermediate Low | "primarily reactive"; "short sentences"; "may hesitate, repeat, or self-correct often" | You answer, but you rarely add anything. Lots of restarts. |
| Intermediate Mid | "creating with the language"; "Their speech largely consists of strings of sentences"; "may contain pauses, reformulations, and self-corrections"; "generally able to be understood" | Sentence after sentence, understandable, with pauses. Mostly lists rather than linked stories. |
| Intermediate High | "converse with ease and confidence" on routine topics; "can handle a substantial number of tasks associated with the Advanced level, but they are unable to sustain performance of all of these tasks all of the time"; "often can narrate and describe in all major time frames using connected discourse of paragraph length" | Most of your answers are real paragraphs in the right time frame. Somewhere in the test, one of them breaks down. |
| Advanced (AL and above) | "narration and description in the major time frames of past, present, and future"; "paragraph-length oral discourse that uses sequencing and linking of phrases for cohesion" | You can tell what happened, describe how things are and say what will happen, in linked paragraphs. |
| Advanced Low | "narrate and describe in the major time frames of past, present, and future with some control of aspect"; narration and description "tend to be handled separately rather than interwoven"; "can appropriately handle the essential linguistic challenges presented by a complication or an unexpected turn of events"; may show "hesitations and self-correction" but repairs with "rephrasing and circumlocution" | Paragraphs on every question, including the role-play problem and the topic you did not pick. Not perfect English: hesitations are allowed if you recover. |
ACTFL also describes the breakdown that keeps a speaker at IH. Its IH paragraph lists "inability to fully carry out narration or description in the appropriate major time frame, difficulty maintaining paragraph-length discourse, or a reduction in breadth and appropriateness of vocabulary". Read that as a checklist for your own recordings: a story that drifts into the present tense, an answer that shrinks to four sentences, or the same five verbs over and over. Each is a sign of IH rather than AL, or of IM3 rather than IH.
How the rater reaches your level
- Your answers are recorded and sent for rating. The opic.or.kr 시험관리규정 page says every result is processed through ACTFL's online rating system.
- ACTFL-certified raters judge the whole test. opic.or.kr calls it holistic evaluation of all your answers and names four areas. In our translation: Function, whether you answer in the way the question needs (asking, describing, persuading and so on); Accuracy, the vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation and fluency that affect understanding; Content/Context, whether what you say fits what the question meant; and Text Type, how much you say and how logically the answer is built. The site adds that raters are re-certified every four years.
- Your self-assessment set the ceiling. ACTFL's OPIc page says the self-assessment chooses one of five forms, and each form "can provide a rating within" a range: Form 1 Novice Low to Intermediate Low, Form 2 up to Intermediate High, Form 3 up to Advanced Low, Form 4 Intermediate High to Advanced High, Form 5 Advanced Mid to Superior. If your target is AL, a form that tops out at IH cannot give it to you. Neither ACTFL nor opic.or.kr publishes which on-screen option leads to which form.
- You get one level, not a score per question. The 시험관리규정 page says the survey and self-assessment choices, the questions and your answers are not disclosed, under ACTFL policy. Requests to re-score or retest are not accepted except for a reason such as a system-error investigation.
- If a technical fault makes your recording unratable (UR), you get a retest or a full refund. If the cause is yours, for example answers too thin to rate, you get neither.
- Asking the rater for a particular grade inside your answer, singing, or swearing voids the test and brings a one-year ban, under the 시험관리규정 page. Never end an answer with "please give me IH".
Results appear 5 days after the test from 13:00, per the 수험자 가이드 page, which warns the date can slip if ACTFL is delayed. The level is valid for two years from the test date. When you submit it, the guide says organisations usually ask for the level, the Test ID and the test date.
One question answered at IM2, IM3, IH and AL
The fastest way to hear the difference between levels is one question answered four ways. All four answers below were written by TalkDrill as teaching examples. They are not real candidates' answers, and the question is ours, written in the style Ava uses; it is not an OPIc item. The level on each is our estimate of what that answer would show. A real rating is given once, across all 12 to 15 answers, so no single answer "is" a level. Read them aloud: the difference is easier to hear than to see.
Earlier you mentioned that you live in an apartment. Tell me about the last time you moved house. How did you get ready for it, what happened on the day, and how did you feel once it was over? Please give me as many details as you can.
IM2-style answer (written by TalkDrill, about 80 words)
Yes. I moved last year, to Mapo. Before, I live in Suwon, but my company is in Seoul, so I move. Before moving day, I pack many box. It was very tiring. Moving day, moving company come at eight o'clock. They are very fast. But it rain a little, so a little difficult. My new apartment is small, but clean, and near subway. I like it. That day I was very tired, so I eat jjajangmyeon and I sleep. That's all.
IM3-style answer (written by TalkDrill, about 130 words)
I moved to a new apartment in Mapo last March. My company moved its office to Seoul, and the bus from Suwon took too long, so I decided to move. To get ready, I packed some boxes every evening for about two weeks, and I threw away a lot of old clothes and books. On the moving day, the movers came at eight in the morning. They worked really fast, but then it started to rain, so we waited for a while and covered the boxes. My new apartment is smaller than my old one, but it's very close to the subway and there are many cafés nearby. In the evening I ordered jjajangmyeon, because Korean people usually eat it on moving day. I was tired, but I was happy.
IH-style answer (written by TalkDrill, about 160 words)
I moved last March, from Suwon to Mapo in Seoul. My company had moved its office, and I was spending almost three hours a day on the bus, so it was time. I started getting ready about two weeks before. Every evening after work I packed two or three boxes, and I finally threw away a lot of clothes I hadn't worn for years. On the day itself, the movers arrived at eight and everything went smoothly until about ten, when it suddenly started to pour. The problem was that the ladder truck couldn't work safely in heavy rain, so we had to wait almost an hour. While we were waiting, I ran to the convenience store and bought plastic sheets for the furniture. In the end almost everything arrived dry, except one box of books. That night I ate jjajangmyeon on the floor, surrounded by boxes. It was exhausting, but now I can walk to work, so it was worth it.
AL-style answer (written by TalkDrill, about 200 words)
I moved last March, and honestly it was one of the more stressful weeks I've had in a while. My company had relocated its office to Seoul, so I'd been commuting from Suwon for almost three hours a day, and I'd been putting the move off for months. Once I finally signed the lease in Mapo, I gave myself two weeks to pack, which turned out to be far too optimistic, because I kept finding things I'd completely forgotten I owned. The day itself started well. The movers arrived at eight and had half the flat loaded within an hour. Then, at around ten, it began to pour, and since the ladder truck can't operate safely in heavy rain, everything came to a standstill. Rather than just stand around, I went and bought plastic sheeting, and the movers and I wrapped the sofa and the mattress while we waited for a break in the weather. We lost one box of books, which was soaked through, but that was the only casualty. If I had to do it again, I'd check the forecast and keep a back-up date. Still, being able to walk to work now makes the whole thing feel worthwhile.
| Feature | IM2 | IM3 | IH | AL |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Past time | Slips into the present in most sentences ("I live", "I move", "they are", "I eat"). | Past tense held through the story. | Held, with the past perfect for background ("had moved", "hadn't worn"). | Held and varied: "I'd been commuting", "I'd been putting the move off", and a conditional about next time. |
| Linking | "But", "so", "that day". | "To get ready", "on the moving day", "but then", "in the evening". | "Every evening", "until about ten, when", "while we were waiting", "in the end". | Links that carry reasons: "once", "since", "rather than", "which turned out to be". |
| The complication | "It rain a little", with no effect on the story. | Rain and a wait, stated but not explained. | Why the rain mattered (the ladder truck), what the speaker did, how it ended. | The same, handled calmly, plus what the speaker would do differently. |
| Words | "Very tiring", "very fast", "small but clean". | Clear but general ("old clothes and books"). | Specific ("ladder truck", "plastic sheets", "two or three boxes"). | Precise and natural ("came to a standstill", "soaked through", "the only casualty"). |
| Text type | Short separate sentences. | A string of sentences in time order. | A connected paragraph with a turning point. | A paragraph with a frame: background, events, problem, evaluation. |
| Ending | "That's all." | A feeling. | A feeling with a reason that links to now. | An evaluation and a hypothetical ("If I had to do it again"). |
| Length | about 80 words | about 130 words | about 160 words | about 200 words |
Three things to take from the table. First, the IM2 and IM3 answers tell the same events; the step between them is mostly tense control and linking, which is why IM2 to IM3 is the quickest climb. Second, the IH answer is already a good answer. What keeps a speaker at IH rather than AL is usually not an answer like this one, but the answers around it: the unexpected topic, or the role-play complication, where the paragraph shrinks and the past tense slips. That is exactly ACTFL's "unable to sustain". Third, the AL answer still has ordinary words in it. Advanced Low is about control and organisation under pressure, not about sounding like a novelist. For the same story told at IM2 and IH on a different topic, see the side-by-side on the practice bank page.
Which level do employers ask for?
Multicampus says on opic.or.kr that about 1,700 companies and institutions use OPIc for hiring, HR and training assessment. Neither Multicampus nor ACTFL publishes which employer asks for which level, and we did not verify any company's cut-off this week, so we print none. Treat any list of "Samsung needs X, LG needs Y" that does not link to the company's own posting as hearsay. What you can do is read the posting precisely, because the IM split changes what the words mean.
| The posting says | What it includes | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| "OPIc IM 이상" (IM or above) | On the face of it, IM1, IM2, IM3, IH and AL. | Whether IM1 counts. If the posting does not say, ask HR before you book. |
| "IM2 이상" | IM2, IM3, IH, AL. An IM1 does not meet it. | That your self-assessment form reaches comfortably above IM2. |
| "IH 이상" | IH and AL. | That your form can rate IH or higher (Form 2 tops out at IH; Form 3 reaches AL, per ACTFL). |
| "AL" | The top of the Korean chart. | That your form reaches AL (Form 3 or Form 4, per ACTFL). |
| "OPIc or TOEIC Speaking" | Either test, on the employer's own equivalence. | Which TOEIC Speaking score they treat as equal; there is no official conversion. See OPIc vs TOEIC Speaking. |
| "Valid result" or a date rule | OPIc results are valid for two years from the test date (opic.or.kr). | The 수험자 가이드 page warns that verification by the organisation takes time, so do not submit a result that is about to expire. |
The certificate is printed online after results are released; under the 시험관리규정 page the first print is free and further prints are paid. Organisations can ask Multicampus to verify a result that is still within two years.
How to move up one level, and how long a retest takes
The table below is our reading of the ACTFL descriptors and the opic.or.kr feedback lines, turned into what has to change between neighbouring levels. The question numbers point to our 60-question OPIc practice bank, where every question has an IH model answer.
| From and to | What has to change (TalkDrill reading) | Practise with |
|---|---|---|
| IL to IM1 | Full sentences on every question, and a third and fourth sentence after the first two. Stop waiting for the next question. | Describe and routine questions: Q1, Q6. |
| IM1 to IM2 | Longer answers on your survey topics, fewer long silences, and role-plays where you actually ask three or four questions. | Role-play questions: Q8, Q20. |
| IM2 to IM3 | Strings of sentences become connected answers, and the past tense holds in stories. | Past-experience questions: Q3, Q43. |
| IM3 to IH | Paragraph-length answers in past, present and future on most questions; a complication solved in the role-play; the unexpected topic answered at length. | Comparison, unexpected-topic and problem role-play questions: Q2, Q4, Q44. |
| IH to AL | The same quality held on every question, with no answer that collapses. Choose a self-assessment form that reaches AL. | Mock B in the practice bank, with the harder second session. |
- Official example: sit on 1 June, and you cannot sit the same language again from 2 to 26 June. You may sit again from 27 June. The day of the test is not counted.
- Applied to this autumn (our arithmetic): sit on Monday 2 November 2026, result on Saturday 7 November from 13:00, earliest retest Saturday 28 November if there is a sitting you can book, and that result on Thursday 3 December.
- So two attempts need at least 31 days from the first sitting to the second result. A Waiver lets you sit once inside the 25 days; it can be used once every 150 days, and never for the same language twice in one day.
The practical lesson: book your first attempt early enough that a second one still fits before your application deadline. Fees and dates by country are on the fees, dates and results page.
Your practice route on TalkDrill
TalkDrill does not hold an OPIc licence and cannot give you an OPIc rating. What it gives you is a partner who asks, listens and follows up, which is what OPIc preparation is mostly short of.
- Find your level today. Record yourself answering the moving-house question above, then one describe, one past-experience and one role-play question from the practice bank. Compare each recording with the four samples and the feature table. Be honest about the past tense.
- Practise the role-plays live. OPIc role-plays ask you to gather information or solve a problem. TalkDrill role-play practice lets the AI play the other side; returning a faulty product and a hotel check-in are close to the problem role-plays in our bank.
- Get follow-ups. In the AI mock interview, ask to be interviewed about one of your survey topics and to be pushed with "what happened next?" and "how was that different from before?". Those are the IH questions.
- Fix the endings. If your "-ed" endings disappear when you speak fast, ten minutes of the past-tense endings read-aloud drill each day helps the past tense survive.
- Follow a plan. The IM2 to IH 30-day roadmap in Korean and the English 30-day roadmap build the retest rule into the calendar, and mistakes by first language lists the habits Korean, Japanese, Mandarin, Vietnamese and Thai speakers lose marks on. The OPIc and TOEIC Speaking hub has everything else.
Sources for this page: the opic.or.kr 시험소개, 수험자 가이드 and 시험관리규정 pages, the ACTFL OPIc page, the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines 2024 and YBM's 레벨과 점수 page, all read on 21 October 2026. Translations from Korean are ours.