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

[LaoDing]

On 4/20/2017 at 7:08 PM, Kemian said:

I am quit shameful of my result. I can't pass HSK 5 after 3 year and a half of Chinese. But I didn't really study for pass HSK.

I am going to do HSK 5 in December. I am going back to China in september for a year so it will help me. 

I think I can pass HSK 5 in September if I take seriously my study. I would like to pass HSK 6 in March 2018. Maybe it's to much haha. 

 

Don't be ashamed! I've been living in China for four years and my speaking is still horrible/indecipherable. My 汉字 knowledge is good, but I'm still struggling to pass the HSK 4 and to understand the most basic conversation. In one year my daughter has not only overpassed me but could take HSK 5 tomorrow and pass it (then again she studied Chinese on a scholarship). 

It's not from a lack of effort or lack of resources and opportunities; rather I'm so busy with work that it's easy to lose what I gain when I do have the time to study, which is not that often. Still, I'll never give up and have had to accept that it's a long Laozi road, or maybe a Great Wall, to acquisition. The reward is in the journey.

[Nick_In_China]

Passed HSK 4 after 3 years of teaching myself Chinese while teaching English in China. Don't remember the score, but it was pretty good.

[iekkim]

Planning to take HSK 1 this coming July. Any tips and resources you guys can share? How should I prepare for it? Should I be taking notes of Chinese characters?

 

I'm taking it just to see how well I have progressed, learning Basic Chinese 1 and 2 in my local Confucius Institute. My laoshi tells me that the Philippines' HSK exams are really cheap. Taking HSK1 will only cost me $4. It's so much cheaper than my $180 IELTS exam.

[Geiko]

On ‎27‎/‎04‎/‎2015 at 5:57 PM, Geiko said:

Well, I finally got my results for HSK 6, and as I expected, I failed. The good news is, I *almost* passed!  

听力 49

阅读 62

写作 57

168/300

 

I really need to work hard on listening, it's obviously the skill I like the least and the one I postpone if I don't have enough free time. However, since my local Confucius Institute organizes HSK exams once every year, I have twelve months to improve my skills, and hopefully next spring I'll get good marks! 

 

I took HSK 6 again last month and today I got my results. The funny thing is that I *almost* passed again.  

听力 44

阅读 74

写作 61

179/300

My listening score is even lower, I don't know what happened during the exam, because a couple of months ago I also took Tocfl band B and finally got level 4 (in the two previous years I only got level 3 because of my 听力 score not being good enough). So I know I improved, even if just a little. But the truth is that during the HSK exam I didn't understand much. I don't know if it was because of the room acoustics (I usually practice listening with my headphones on, so everything is unnaturally clear), or simply because I didn't improve enough, but well.

I was also surprised by my writing score, I was under the impression that I had done better in this year's composition, the story was way easier and I felt confident about my writing, I misspelled a couple of characters (床，赚), but in general I was satisfied, I expected a higher score.

Let's be positive, I only have to fix my listening problem...

[Alex_Hart]

Just passed HSK 5 with 229/300. I did much worse on the actual test than on my practice tests - I was getting 85s-90s across the board on my practice tests. Partly because I got nervous, but I also thought it was much harder than the BLCUP mock tests.

 

写作 was my worst section - I panicked on the test and wrote 180 words for both sections, and my brain shut down on one of them so I tried writing something philosophical. Pretty sure that really messed me up. Will need to work on writing in the future. 

 

[BrianC]

HSK 5

听力 54
阅读 56
写作 63 Total 173
I am quit shameful of my result. I can't pass HSK 5 after 3 year and a half of Chinese. But I didn't really study for pass HSK. I am going to do HSK 5 in December. I am going back to China in september for a year so it will help me.  I think I can pass HSK 5 in September if I take seriously my study. I would like to pass HSK 6 in March 2018. Maybe it's to much haha.    No need at all to be ashamed.  I just got my results, passed barely with a 198, and I studied for well over a year.  I found it very difficult, more than the mocks.  Hang in there, hopefully you'll give it another shot!

[grawrt]

I took HSK6 last month (June 24th) and failed. 

听力 54

阅读 48

写作 74

Total 176

 

I'm really surprised I got highest on my writing skills. Not that the story was hard (it was actually quite easy) but I used really basic wirting, and i had no clue what character the guys name was so I just kept saying Mr. lastname since I could read his last name. I found the listening part of the test to be a lot harder than on the few mock exams I took. 

 

All in all, quite disappointed but I can see where I need to improve on, my 阅读 score had no reason to be that low except my own lack of practice. I'd like to try my hand at the test again next year but my school might force me to take it before next semester, so maybe might have to take it again in less than two weeks. 加油

[lrumin94]

Hello! I am very new to Chinese and I just took my HSK 1 recently. I am hoping to score well.

[Geiko]

23 hours ago, grawrt said:

[About HSK 6]I found the listening part of the test to be a lot harder than on the few mock exams I took. 

 

Now that you mention it, I had the same impression, and I took many mock exams. I did a little survey about the listening part of the mock test books that I used that might be useful to other people who want to prepare for HSK 6.

 

I used three mock test books:

1. New HSK mock tests and analyses by Sinolingua, includes five mock exams. 

2. Simulated tests of the New HSK Level VI by BLCUP, ten tests. 

3. Essential HSK level 6 by BLCUP, four tests. 

My average scores for the first and second books were 67.6% and 75.4%, whereas I only got 56% in the third book, where I failed three of the four tests. One would think that the 2nd book is the best option, because it's the one with the most mock tests, but seeing that I only scored 44% in the real exam, I would say that this book gives you a false sense of security. 

So my advice would be, don't trust too much your results in the mock tests, unless you pass with high scores the four tests of the third book. Then you will be ok with the real thing. 

[grawrt]

Damn geiko, I used the second book two so that makes sense xD I'll try and get the third book for my own practice. I don't normally trust mock tests too much but I found for the HSk5 they were quite close to the actual exam. 

[Geiko]

I've used the Simulated tests series since HSK 2, and up until HSK 5, my impression was that they were slightly harder than the real exam, but very close to it. However, this hasn't been true for HSK 6.

[BrianC]

Got results for HSK5 in late June.  I passed, but not by a lot:

 

听力  68
阅读  64
写作  66

TTL  198

 

The test was harder than I thought and most of the mocks I took.  The reading goes very fast, as has been noted.  I was prepared for this, but it's tiring.  The grammar questions in 写作 were more difficult than I encountered on the mocks as well.

 

Not a great pass, but after the test I felt I has at best a 50-50 chance of passing, so I'll certainly take it.  For those taking it, suggest getting reading speed and skimming skills up to a good level, which I didn't do enough of.  

[baihua]

I took HSK 5 about fifteen months previous and repeated it again two months ago. I passed both times, but I definitely got the impression the latest test was much harder.

 

No hard evidence to go off, but I wonder if this is a trend.

[zander1]

Took a bunch of exams last month and just got the results:

 

HSKK Advanced -70

HSK 5 - listening:90 reading: 84 writing:83 total - 257

HSK 6 - listening:70 reading:56 writing:70 total - 196.

 

Very happy! 

[Bao]

On 6/20/2017 at 2:39 AM, Geiko said:

My listening score is even lower, I don't know what happened during the exam, because a couple of months ago I also took Tocfl band B and finally got level 4 (in the two previous years I only got level 3 because of my 听力 score not being good enough). So I know I improved, even if just a little. But the truth is that during the HSK exam I didn't understand much. I don't know if it was because of the room acoustics (I usually practice listening with my headphones on, so everything is unnaturally clear), or simply because I didn't improve enough, but well.

I was also surprised by my writing score, I was under the impression that I had done better in this year's composition, the story was way easier and I felt confident about my writing, I misspelled a couple of characters (床，赚), but in general I was satisfied, I expected a higher score.

 

Would you consider taking the computer test? Then you'd have clear audio with headphones and also not have to worry about writing mistakes.

But don't be discouraged!! These tests vary a lot in difficulty, most likely you were just unlucky this time around

[Geiko]

Thank you, @Bao! Yes, I also think the computer based test might be my best option. Being able to write by hand Chinese characters is important for me, so I'd rather pass the paper-based exam, but considering my last results it's worth to give it a try. 

[Bao]

I just saw my results and got 221 for my HSK 6. Above the 180 passing grade but I also read that passing means beating 74.75% of the people who took the test...? So which is it? (Doesn't that mean if everyone else did very well I might not actually have passed?)

[edelweis]

@Bao

this 74.75% thing is probably for a previous version of the HSK. (There have been several "New HSKs").

Indeed, if you are referring to https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/3696/how-to-estimate-your-score-for-an-hsk-practice-exam

notice that the "HSK Score(Total)" column goes up to 400 ... this does not match the current Hanban "new HSK".

Also, the web page that the first answer refers to as official website of the HSK  seems to be down.

 

My understanding is that the current Hanban new HSK has a set number of points per questions, which determine your end result, independently from other test takers. See here: http://www.chinesetest.cn/userfiles/file/HSK-pingfen.pdf

 

 

 

[Bao]

Thanks for clearing that up @edelweis !

[laomao]

I took HSK 3 last month and got the results today: 273/300

Listening: 95

Reading: 96

Writing: 82

 

I thought my writing was a bit better than that, but it shows I shouldn't be complacent! Onwards to HSK4!

 

(Long-time lurker, thought I should sign up at last.)