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

[nency97]

Hello, people! I need help!

I have just found out about HSK exam and I am interested in taking it. However, I am indecisive since I do not know whether I should take HSK level 3 or 4. It really depends on vocabulary they require.

That is why I want to ask: is there any official list of vocabulary needed for level 3 or 4? For example, I have seen a list on this site:http://www.confuciusinstitute.manchester.ac.uk/medialibrary/hsk/vocabularylists/hsk-level-3-vocabulary-list.pdf but I do not know if it's the official one.

And do these two levels require special assistance of someone profificent with Chinese?

You see, I have been stuying this language for 2 years (the third has just begun, I'm 17)) at the secondary philological school, Chinese department and I used to have Chinese 5 days a week (I do not go to school on weekends, so I have Chinese classes every working day). This year, however, I have Chinese seven days a week since I now have another subject associated with Chinese. It is: Basics of translating Chinese language, so I learn how to use Oxford dictionaries, translate unknown texts and, therefore, new characters. I also attended courses at Confucius Institute and I learnt many new characters there. Of course, I study grammar simultaneously.

Soooo, are there any chances to pass level 3 or even level 4? The date of exam is December 6 2014, and I need to decide which level to take...

Any list of vocabulary and any piece of advice would help significantly!

Thanks in advance!

[lora_hristova]

hey guys i have to two questions and no matter what i searched for i couldnot get the answer
i am doing a-levels now but i kind of screwed up my AS and i did bad however i am re-sitting and i was just wondering if you take for example the hsk test what grades do the chinese university requires and will i be accepted even if i have low grades.I couldnot find the grade requirements on any website.
 thanks alot x 

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[Geiko]

Hi Iora_hristova! Each university can require the grade they want to, maybe to enter A university you need to have HSK 5 with 180+, and to go to B university, HSK 5 with only 60 points might be enough. This is the reason why HSK 5 & 6 certificates don't have a passing score any more (see here). 

[edelweis]

Generally speaking, as a self-supported foreign student (= you pay fees to the university), your Chinese level doesn't matter much. They might want a HSK certificate, or they might have an entrance test, but if your Chinese isn't good enough they will just make you study one year of Chinese before starting your actual studies (= more money for them).

[Elizabeth_rb]

Hello nency!

 

The lists you've found are more or less the official ones, but at higher levels they become more of a guide than an absolute list of what to expect.  You may be OK at levels 3 and 4 with the list you've found.

 

Add oil!

[HerrPetersen]

I just got my results from the HSK-level 4 test. I got 267/300 (95/90/82 ; tingli, yuedu, xiezuo). It is pretty much in the neighbourhood of what I achieved in the practice tests. I felt that I did an awful-lot of guessing though. I find the Chinese used in the tests not trival at all and I was always kind of  baffled how well the scores turned out. I will have to do a lot more practicing to be able to talk/write at the level of the test questions.

Anyhow it was a good experience for me and it especially motivated me to get back into the learning groove (after a 2+ year break). Maybe I will go for the HSK5 next year.

[Steingletscher]

After reading the results of previous test-takers, I feel ashamed of my score of 196 on the HSK 5, which was the result of 25 months of continuos study. Apparently, I could have done much better and my study habits aren't very good.

[Geiko]

Steingletscher, how can you draw such conclusions after reading other people's results? I scored 227/300 in HSK 5, but I've been studying Chinese for five years now. Compared to your 25 months, should I be embarrassed of my 60 months? I think you can't compare your grades to others', because studying conditions may vary greatly, wether you move to China or not, if you can study full-time or not … it will make a huge difference. If you worked hard and achieved your goal, congratulations! That's the only thing that counts. And after all, HSK exams don't measure your real level of Chinese.

[imron]

After reading the results of previous test-takers,

I think you can't compare your grades to others'

I agree with this.  Comparing yourself with others will almost always lead to disappointment because for anything you want to do there will always be someone faster, better, younger, stronger, richer or whatever.  Plus you never know what biases and errors were introduced (accidentally or otherwise) by other people reporting their achievements.

 

It's much more productive to compare yourself with your past self.  Do you know more than you did yesterday?  If so, keep it up, you'll eventually get where you're going.

[anonymoose]

山外有山 人外有人

[lukaluka123]

hi, i am new here and i am looking for vocab. list for hsk2 and hsk3

can somebody tell me where can I find them

I have found a lot of them today, but somes have not the translations, pinyin and simplefiled characters, 

plese if you find it or make it post here i will be very thakful

[tdcluckett]

Long time reader, first time poster. Excited to post. 

 

I took two semesters of Chinese (with a large focus on writing) before coming to teach in Shenzhen. Taking classes a few times a week here and took the HSK 3 last month (Dec. 6th.) I realize I'm still in the kiddy pool of the language, but I'm happy with that progression

 

听力 96

阅读 91

学作 78

 

265/300

 

Hoping to take the 4 before my contract is up in June. My Chinese teacher seems to think that it's not possible, but I'm taking that as a personal challenge. 

[Walkingtree]

tdcluckett - I just learned that there are two versions of the test: computer and hand written. If you are worried about the time crunch you can certainly get to HSK 4 if you take the computer version, as you only have to type pinyin for the writing session. Reduces overall work by 33%. I took the paper version but could have gotten a much better score with the computer.

[Geiko]

This weekend I'm going to sit HSK 6. I know for sure I'll fail, I took (and passed) level 5 only ten months ago, and I've had some family issues that reduced the amount of time I could dedicate to Chinese. I took some mock exams these days, and my scores were around 50-60%, so unless my 书写 score is above 80%, there's no way I can pass. And I'm taking the paper-based test, so …

Anyway, I'm taking it to see where my weaknesses are, to work hard for my next attempt, and besides, next weekend I'm going to Paris to take TOCFL band B, so I'll be able to compare the difficulty of both exams. It will be fun!

[Geiko]

Well, it was worse than I expected!   I found the exam difficult in general, and especially the listening part, but this is one of my weakest skills, it's obvious that I need to work harder with my 听力. The writing section was also harder than I had expected, the story was about the chengyu 《退避三舍》 and it was fun, because the character 楚 simply vanished from my head, and I had just read it on the text!   I had to choose between 梦 and 处, so I ended talking about 处国... 

 

We were 15 people taking 6级, only two of whom were Spaniards, whereas the rest were teenage 华裔. 

[makochan]

Well I just took the HSK 5 and HSK Oral Intermediate test yesterday.

The HSK Oral Intermediate wasn't too bad. I feel like the 10 min in between is a good amount of time to outline what you're going to say for the 4 questions. But I still found it hard to speak continuously for the 2 min duration.

The HSK 5 was about as hard as I expected. The listening section wasn't too bad, but I definitely spaced out for a split second and it may have cost me a question.

The reading section is definitely always the hardest section for me to tackle. I was actually surprised that I finished the section and still had 5 min to spare. Usually in all my practice tests, I never have any time left over. I went back and corrected a few questions in the fill-in-the-blank so hopefully that was to my advantage.

The writing section was okay and had ample time to finish. I actually wish they would take 10 min away from the writing section and give it to the reading section.

In general, I feel like I don't perform well on standardized tests...so we'll see how it went in one month.

[sean1]

I took HSK 5 paper test yesterday too. I actually found it harder than the level 5 practice papers I had done online. Did you or anyone else find that? I wish I had taken the computer test with hindsight. It would have been much easier to knock the writing out in a shorter time and focus more on the reading which took me forever. 

 

When I got home I looked up some words that I didn't know and found that they were on the HSK 6 word list. Is that normal? I hadn't encountered it on the practice papers. There was a passage about the Amazon river and its 生态，and another passage about 死亡, both words that were vital to the passage but are in HSK 6. 

[edelweis]

@Geiko: Sat 14 March 2015 is not listed in the chinesetest.cn HSK dates here:

http://www.chinesetest.cn/gonewcontent.do?id=10419157

is this list incorrect?

[edelweis]

@sean1: yes, HSK5 and HSK6 tests can and most often do include words which are not in the official list for the corresponding level.

There were some threads earlier comparing the amount of extra vocabulary in several mock test books and real tests, if you look around you might find them (or someone might post a link).

Even lower level tests can have a few new words.

 

For instance see the HSK5 sample tests (HSK五级真题) on this page:

http://www.chinesetest.cn/godownload.do

 

Edit: But I'm not sure than you can split the time you spend on the reading and writing parts at will when you take the computer exam. Doesn't the test interface have separate timers for those two parts?

[Geiko]

@Edelweis: wow, that's strange, I don't dare to say that this list is incorrect, but at least it's incomplete, I promise I took HSK 6 last March 14th, it wasn't a dream!