HSK 0 to HSK6 -> 1 month Challenges to learning mandarin

Are you saying you were able to pass an  HSK1 mock test with just 20 hours total of learning chinese? 

Yes, it's very simple especially the first 25 questions, those barely need thinking at all if you've gone through the vocab.  HSK 1 does not test understanding or grammatical structures, just if you remember words and can hear them...

Very impressive. If you are able to do HSK 1 already, you should have no problem passing HSK2 by June. After all, HSK2 is the same amount of new vocabulary as HSK1, just 150 more. So maybe you will be able to pass HSK2 after just another 20 hours of studies. Keep up the good work. Looking forward to seeing how you progress in a week or two. 

LOL so am I!!! I know that the beginning is always exponential growth... then that post beginner wall/block comes and everything slows down to snails pace... I'm hoping that does not happen soon  

For me learning chinese has been something that just gets easier and easier over time. The very beginning is the hardest part, but with the current HSK system they let you feel like you're going faster at the start.  

 

Once you have a solid foundation in character components, pinyin pronunciations, stroke order (if anything so you can look up characters from books via handwriting recognition software), and a thousand or so words under your belt it turns into a grind to train your abilities and learn the new vocab.