HSK Frustrations

[perjp]

I got my HSK test results today, something which promptly caused

my already not so good mood to plummet to something along the lines

of "why do I even bother trying to learn this stupid language."

Please indulge me complaining and feeling sorry for myself for a while,

and feel free to share your HSK experiences.

Somewhat surprisingly, tingli came out worst, with a very disappointing

3. I suspect that this is mainly do to two things, one is that I'm not

exactly a morning type of person, meaning that I was all but awake when

I took the test. Furthermore, it wasn't so much a case of tingbudong,

rather kanbudong. I found myself fumbling at several points, not having

time to read the answers properly. I ran through some tingli tests before

the exam (all while properly awake, though), and I usually end up with

a 6 (or at least a strong 5), so the disappointment cannot be

exaggerated enough

Yuedu has always been my achilles heel, as I simply cannot read properly

at speeds expected on the HSK exam. If I try to do that, I don't catch

anything. I also suspect that the very characters I don't know the meaning

of are the most important ones in decoding the meaning of a sentence.

I am also frequently flustered by the fact that all the Japanese (and mostly

also the Koreans) fly through this part as if it's child's play (since they

already know the meaning of the characters, and are infinately better

at guessing the correct answers than I will ever be). I ended up

with a 4 in yuedu. Somewhat expected, but still...

Tiankong did not fare much better, I also got a 4 here. It was very nearly

a 5 though, which was closer to what I expected, as I actually managed

to write most of the damn characters in the last section.

Finally, as expected, Yufa came out best, with a 6. This gives a grand

total of 4, which is two less than what I need, and one less than what I

hoped for. I guess I'll need more coffe next time to survive the tingli.

Oh, I should probably add something about my background in Chinese:

I've studied roughly one and a half years, the last 10 months in Shanghai

at Fudan University.

PS: Has anybody else noticed that where you fill in your name on the test

registration form, there's one box for your name in Chinese, and one box

for your name in English. Being Norwegian, I don't have an English name

(I do in fact have a name which is very difficult for English speaking

people to pronounce correctly). This only confirms my suspicion that

Chinese basically view the world's languages thusly: Chinese (with all

its dialects) and English.

PPS: I just checked my residence permit, which does things correctly, with

one place for my name in Chinese and one in Waiwen.

[woodcutter]

I'm gearing up for HSK sometime - any good ideas on preparation for it? My tingli is a bit of a problem too.

Actually I've found that the Japanese and Koreans are surprisingly slow with characters sometimes, maybe because they are overconfident.

Good luck next time....

[Jive Turkey]

I wouldn't worry too much about having gotten low scores. I took it last December and I was all over the range. I had eights in grammar and reading, but I got a 6 in the fill in the blank part and a 4 (just shy of a 5) on the listening. It's hard to say what is difficult for everyone, but my guess is that everyone has a bit more difficulty on the listening part. As you said, you've got to have good reading skills on the listening part, but what I find more difficult is that you have to listen to so many short utterances with no context. I actually do better on the second and third parts of the listening exam than I do on the first part.

As for preparing for the listening and reading sections, I can recommend two books from BLU Press. They are both from the 2nd year of the four year degree series.

汉语听说教程

ISBN 7-5619-0848-2

As the title suggests, this is a listening and conversation book. If you're just using it by yourself, then you can skip the conversation parts. It uses an inductive approach for vocabulary. The dialogues are all at fairly natural speeds and the listening tasks are well designed. There are also some review chapters that will help you prepare for exam style listening (which really isn't a natural skill at all, is it?). After using this two volume set, I've been getting sevens and eights on HSK practice exams.

汉语阅读教程

ISBN ISBN 7-5619-1046-0

If you follow the instructions in this book, you will learn to read much more naturally. It will really break you out of bad reading habits such as turning to the dictionary too often or concentrating on insignificant parts of a text. Each chapter has some base, brickwall vocabulary in the initial reading. Then there are 6 to 10 passages with scan/skim reading questions; there is no pre-taught vocabulary for these passages. They are almost all authentic, but have been edited in order to grade the language to an appropriate level; most of the stuff the editors cut out is just fat or pretty low-frequency vocabulary. None of the reading passages would seem dumbed down to a native speaker. The theory that the editors followed was that they should adjust the reading task or questions to fit the learner, not adjust the text; this keeps the readings quite authentic (but like all mainland books, some of the readings are a bit boring or are propaganda-I guess that makes them even more authentic!). You will find yourself learning vocabulary a lot more naturally as you use this book. I have also greatly improved my reading spead.

If memory serves, Roddy posted some details about a few other books that helped him on the listening part of the HSK.

Most importantly, just remember that it's just a stupid exam. People have bad days. Exams still have flaws. The exam is also "beicentric" in the listening part. Having lived mostly down south, there is some stuff on the listening part that I have never once heard down here. Don't let one setback get you down. I think you should give the exam at least one more try. Only if you manage to muck it up again should we start to worry about you.

[beijingbooty]

I dont know what you are worried about.

After having only studied for 1 and a half years, I would be satisfied with that as a result in the intermediate test.

(I take it, it was the intermediate test you took ?)

Many people have trouble with hsk intermediate after a 3-4 year degree course.

At one and half years study, you can only be regarded as a beginner, and a score like you got sounds fine to me.

[beijingbooty]

In my opinion HSK intermediate is actually pretty damned hard, especially if you are a self learner.

The trial tests I have been taking are only giving me about 30-40% correct answers and I have been self-studying for over 3 years now.

To be honest I am scared shitless over hsk intermediate, but perhaps my trial tests are harder than average. At least I am hoping that is the case.

[roddy]

I’m not surprised people find this exam hard – remember it’s not an intermediate exam, it’s an elementary and intermediate exam rolled into one – which means you could be making great progress at elementary level, but still find the intermediate parts very difficult and discouraging. Don’t worry about where you are in relation to the exam – worry about where you are in relation to where you were a few months ago.

[xuechengfeng]

what exactly is hsk?

[Meng Lelan]

xuechengfeng: HSK is the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi 漢語水平考試

It is a proficiency exam of Chinese.

Jive Turkey: Where can I get a copy of 漢語阅读教程

online? I am in the US right now.

[geek_frappa]

what exactly is hsk?

http://www.lsa.umich.edu/asian/chinese/hsk.html#GEN

[Jive Turkey]

Jive Turkey: Where can I get a copy of 漢語阅读教程

online?

From BLU Press' date=' of course.

[url']http://www.blcup.com/[/url]

Actually, I've never ordered anything online from them. Their website looks organized, but I'm not sure how reliable/fast they are. You will end up paying a lot more for postage than you will for the price of the book, but I think their materials are well worth the cost of shipping. They are the only school/publisher in the world that really seems to have a clue about Chinese language teaching. It amazes me how ignorant most Chinese course providers and teachers are of the materials and methodology developed at BLU. Other than BLU, there are only about three or four other institutions where I'd want to study full-time.

[perjp]

I took the Intermediate exam, I don't know anything about the

elementary exam (in fact I didn't know one existed until recently).

A 4 on the Intermediate exam is "Beginner - B".

I found the level on the exam pretty consistent with the practice material I'd been going through, but the main problem on the exam is really

time, you don't have any time to put any consideration into your answers, as you just have to work full steam to finish everything in time. When I took my University degree (in Norway) all my exams were 6 hours, so my system is getting quite a shock by these very brief exams...

Thanks for the book reccommendations, I'll note down the names and ISBN and check out the foreign languages bookstore downtown. Whenever I go shopping for specific books, I always make sure to note the ISBN number, but this doesn't seem to be very effective in China.

Here, when I ask for a book the personnell either say flat down they don't have the book, or browse about randomly, they usually seem to have a computer, but they don't use it...