Taking the HSK? Already taken it? Report in here!

[Pomelofruit]

Congrats @PandaCat! 

 

I enjoy the diagnostics report and wish it was available online, as I'm pretty sure I'll misplace my paper certificate one day...

 

On 9/8/2024 at 3:03 PM, PandaCat said:

Another interesting thing is that there's a Diagnostic Report attached to my HSK results. I didn't receive one when I sat for HSK3 previously. I still haven't figured out how to interpret the report though.

 

Your total marks (262/300) put you in the 91st percentile (i.e. top 9% of test takers), broken down into listening/reading/writing in 92nd, 81st and 91st percentile respectively.

 

The spider charts show you're well rounded in the different topics (slightly weaker in career/work and 询问看法 which I think is 'asking for an opinion'?), but I don't know what the 'score percentage' means though.

 

The grammar diagnostics (which I admit I've never looked up) corresponds to certain grammar that you can develop further.

 

 

[PandaCat]

Thank you @Pomelofruit!

That was a detailed breakdown of the diagnostics report. 

I guess the only thing we can do now is to scan and save a softcopy of the report in case we ever lose the hardcopy. 

[WoJiaoBuxi]

I am feeling so hopeless at the moment in terms of HSK6. I have attempted it 5 times! May - September. My score is always around 160. Each section yoyos back and forth. I graduated in January and got my graduation certificate but haven't received my degree yet because I need HSK6! Luckily, I was able to get permission to register for my master's last week, despite not having my degree certificate yet. I am stressed because I don't have much time to sort this out. I think I should change the test centre at minimum. I also want to try the PBT, but the deadline is also before the results are released. I spent so much on getting extra lessons and although it helped a lot, I still can't seem to pass. Having ADHD is a big factor which leads to me having terrible time management. Anxiety and the stress also don't help my situation. Whenever I do mocks, I perform reasonably well. It's the testing conditions that crush my spirit. My undergrad is in Chinese Language by the way. So I actually do know a lot of the content. 😢 😢 😢 Some of my classmates (who were definitely not as proficient) easily passed their HSK in their home countries. I wish going home was an option but it's not. I also don't have my new passport yet, so travelling to write it is also not an option. I will need to sign up again for IBT to write on the 19th of October 😢 I have spent an ungodly amount of money on this endeavour! Any advice will be appreciated. 

[becky82]

The HSK6 is brutal, and the stress can be harmful to your mental health and decrease the benefit of your study (and it's expensive and time-consuming).  If there were a reasonable method of increasing marks rapidly, we'd all be using it.  Anyway...

• You can get good marks in sections 2 through 4 with sufficient time, but that's not true for section 1 ("faulty wording"): in section 1 you might not even get full marks with infinite time and access to Google.  (Just make sure you put the answer in the correct box.)  So it can be best to take the reading section backwards (4, 3, 2, 1).
• Daily reading is important for vocabulary and reading fluency; something like 10000+ characters daily.  Articles like those at Sohu are quite similar to the HSK6 content (especially health).  In fact, I suspect some of the HSK6 content is basically copy/pasted from Sohu or similar sites.
• When preparing for the listening section, I suggest re-listening to the recording and allowing yourself to change your answers.  It doubles your listening input, and makes it less stressful.  (I often find changing my answers makes minimal different to my marks anyway.)

I am kind of curious as to how much your marks have fluctuated between exams, as I'm in a similar situation where I've not passed it (twice before).

[imron]

On 9/28/2024 at 8:51 AM, becky82 said:

If there were a reasonable method of increasing marks rapidly, we'd all be using it.

Improving your reading speed is an often overlooked area, which can provide rapid gains.

 

Its not enough just to do reading, you also have to consciously make an effort to read faster - which is usually quite easy for learners whose reading speed ossified at the beginner/intermediate level.

 

You should pay particular attention to whether you are making mouth or tongue movements as you read (and stop that because it will slow you down), then focus on improving the speed of regular passages. 
 

It’s been a while since I’ve looked at it, but many years back you needed a reading speed of at least 250 cpm just to read everything on the exam (let alone answer the questions). So you need a reading speed north of that to get through everything with enough time to answer questions. 
 

 

[PandaCat]

One of my teachers gave a few tips on how to read faster and said a few of her former students managed to pass HSK6 after a semester of her classes. Some tips are:

 

1) To not focus on reading every single word: she said a lot of students "有这个毛病" (which I'm also guilty of 🤣), which is to use our finger to trace every word while reading. Try to read as you would a block of text in your native language (i.e. don't trace / focus one-by-one on every word).

2) When you come across words you do not recognize, don't worry and quickly skip them. The aim is to train yourself to infer the overall meaning of sentences despite not knowing a few words in that sentence.

3) If you come across sentences with many examples, quickly skim the examples to save time especially during the first read (e.g. If you see the word 比如, or these symbols ：or 、then you'd know there'll be a list of examples following so do not focus too much on them)

4) If you see a person's name with their titles or positions, also quickly skim it. I'm not sure how to word this so I'll give an example sentence from an article. If you see something like this:

中国旅游研究院院长戴斌分析，从假日消费来看，科技赋能文旅融合高质量发展效果更加明显……

Don't focus on "中国旅游研究院院长戴斌". Train yourself to recognize that whatever comes after 分析 is the important part of the sentence, so we should skip the front part to save time. 

5) For the first read of an article, do skim reading (Depending on the length of an article, aim for about 1000 characters in 7 mins). Then try to understand the meaning of the article. If you want to improve your vocab, you can do that later during the second read, by looking up characters you don't recognise. Basically try to speed read during the first read of an article. 

 

Not sure how useful these tips would be for HSK6 specifically but they helped me improve my chinese reading skills in general, hopefully it's beneficial to you too~

[imron]

One thing you can do is take all the text from a practice exam (or segment of the practice exam) and put that in to a word processor or other tool that counts the total number of characters.  Then you can look at the time allocated to the exam (or segment) and calculate the cpm speed you need just to read everything.

 

Then time yourself reading a section and see what your speed is.

 

You should then target a good 20% above the required cpm in order to be able to read and process the content comfortably during the exam.

 

Every speed increase you make gives you more time on the exam.  This is true even for the sections where reading isn't the main focus because you still need to read the questions and the possible answers.

[becky82]

@WoJiaoBuxi: How did you go on the HSK6?

 

I think I did "okay-ish" on the listening section, and well in the reading section.  I felt the writing section was far easier than my previous attempts---no rare and complicated characters for me to handwrite.  Basically, I did about as good as I could do on this HSK6; if I want to do better, I'd need hundreds of hours of advanced listening practice.

 

However, the HSKK高级 exam was insanely hard!  I spoke with some students afterwards (three Koreans and one student from El Salvador) who said they thought they did awfully.  I had no idea what they said in the first two 复数 questions (they made the HSK6 listening section seem easy), so I'm definitely losing major 口语 marks for that (demoralizing!).  I nailed the "read aloud" section, but it's a totally pointless exercise.  The last section is the only meaningful one, and even so, there was a "give your opinion about this chengyu that you've never seen before" question!  I feel like it's a terribly badly designed exam.  Everyone in there seemed to only be taking it because they were forced to.

[becky82]

I have officially passed the HSK6, getting just over 60 in each section.

 

 

I note that I took the handwritten exam, and I have Australian nationality, and I took the exam in China, so I could be taking this exam on "nightmare" difficulty.

 

According to chinesetest.cn's analysis, the global average on the exam I took was 205 (or 68%):

 

 

The Australian average was 250 (or 80%):

 

[PandaCat]

Congratulations on passing HSK6! That must have felt like a weight is finally off your shoulders. Any ideas on what next after this amazing milestone? 

[WoJiaoBuxi]

Well done @becky82! You really deserve this, girl! 

I am going to use your yt videos as motivation to study.

 

As expected, I didn't make it again. I didn't have any time to study. I started my masters and I am taking too many courses. My husbae also came to visit a week before, so I knew there was no hope. I signed up because I was anxious about my uni following up... I also decided to skip the test this month because I had no time. I was considering doing the pbt in December but I missed the sign up date because the test is on the 8th 😭 I am unsure whether to try the IBT again or whether to wait for Jan for the PBT. 

 

My uni says I can do the BCT level 5 instead but that's not every month and I don't know anything about it. 

 

I have forgotten almost everything I have learned, because I am now studying in English. 

 

I need to get it together!

 

I thought the writing part was easier than it has ever been, and I thought I understood the story... But I guess I am delusional... My writing score keeps getting worse 😕 So I might as well do the pbt and do better with the reading part. 

 

CONGRATS again! 

[becky82]

On 11/18/2024 at 9:10 PM, PandaCat said:

Congratulations on passing HSK6! That must have felt like a weight is finally off your shoulders. Any ideas on what next after this amazing milestone? 

 

Next?  Oh that's the question.  There seems to be a few potential futures for me: (a) sending my CV around and getting a job (either in maths, or maybe in something like applied linguistics), (b) trying to turn my YouTube channel into something profitable (learn video editing), (c) going for the HSK7-9, or seeing if I can get 70% on the HSK6, or seeing if my HSKK marks could improve (I got 55% on the HSKK), (d) somehow figuring out how to become a Chinese teacher, (e) "touch grass" or go outside more.  I'm not actually sure.  Winter is coming in China, and I tend to hibernate during winter.

 

On 11/18/2024 at 10:28 PM, WoJiaoBuxi said:

As expected, I didn't make it again. I didn't have any time to study. I started my masters and I am taking too many courses.

 

Life certainly has a habit of being incompatible with Chinese study.  I wish you good luck for the future!