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

[suMMit]

Got my HSKK speaking result(took a month). It's out of 100, and 60 is pass. At least I passed, but not too excited.

[7800]

I took the HSK5 (on paper) yesterday and the listening part was simply absurd, I couldn't understand shit. I was expecting a 80/100 from all the mock tests I took, but I don't think I'll get anything above 50. The reading part was normal, I think I did really well, and the (hand)writing wasn't hard but it was a challenge because of the time limit.

 

So far all the tests I'd taken were very similar to the practice ones available on the official website, and I almost aced HSK4, so I really wasn't expecting this much of a difference.

[working dog]

On 8/22/2023 at 2:25 AM, 7800 said:

So far all the tests I'd taken were very similar to the practice ones available on the official website, and I almost aced HSK4, so I really wasn't expecting this much of a difference.

可能你需要精读几篇听力材料。有时候你能听懂，但是问题并不是你注意力关注的点，而是需要推理一下。可以尝试把听到的关键信息记录一下，对照问题再分析是不是会更好？

[Lu]

On 8/22/2023 at 5:30 AM, working dog said:

可能你需要精读几篇听力材料。

Hi Working Dog, welcome to the forums! Great to have a native speaker weigh in. Please make sure to post mainly in English -- many members here don't know Chinese very well yet, and we want everyone to be able to understand the discussion.

[working dog]

On 8/23/2023 at 3:26 AM, Lu said:

Hi Working Dog, welcome to the forums! Great to have a native speaker weigh in. Please make sure to post mainly in English -- many members here don't know Chinese very well yet, and we want everyone to be able to understand the discussion.

Oh, I'm sorry. I will post message in English next time.

[7800]

On 8/22/2023 at 2:25 AM, 7800 said:

I took the HSK5 (on paper) yesterday and the listening part was simply absurd, I couldn't understand shit. I was expecting a 80/100 from all the mock tests I took, but I don't think I'll get anything above 50. The reading part was normal, I think I did really well, and the (hand)writing wasn't hard but it was a challenge because of the time limit.

 

I got my certificate in hands just an hour ago, and luckily it seems like the website is up again

 

 

Since the highest global average for this one test was on the 听力部分, I'll need to find a new excuse as to why I couldn't understand the recording. Maybe I should try saying that the audio was too loud? 
70/100 is ok, but I only got that much because I'm good at taking tests. My actual understanding of the listening part was appalling. I might not have been able to understand a single word on some exercises, and I'd never experienced anything close to that.

 

阅读 was quite easy, I read all the texts at normal pace and had to wait for a while to start the writing part. Reading is definitely the skill I exercise the most.

My score on 书写 was kind of a mystery to me, because it had been a long time since I had last written Chinese by hand, and I didn't have the time to practice. I intended to take the online test in November, but I sent an e-mail to the C.I. near me and they said they would only hold a 纸笔 test in August. My strategy was to write a simple yet "perfect" text. The marking scheme requires  内容与图片相关 or 5个词语全部使用 ，无错别字，无语法错误，内容丰富、连贯且合逻 for a high score, so I ignored the "rich content" part and focused on the other ones. I wasn't sure whether they'd like a text whose vocabulary was clearly below HSK5 level, but it seems like they did. This is the only section where I'm not below my test site average, the few other people taking the test with me were all Chinese-born, so I'm VERY happy with my writing score.

[Pomelofruit]

Reviving this thread as I prepare for HSK6 later this year, having passed HSK5 in September last year (Sep-23). Wish I'd found this forum sooner!

 

For background, I'm ethnically Chinese and speak Chinese with my parents at home, but grew up outside China. To prepare for HSK5, I took lessons with That's Mandarin school in Beijing (we recently moved to Beijing for my husband's work) following the standard coursebooks.

 

Here is what I wish I'd known, and a reflection on the (web-based) exam itself.

 

HSK5 consisted of both the 'written' exam (listening/reading/writing) as well as the HSKK oral exam. On the day, the exam room was laid out with desks that had computers, headphones with in-built mics and a keyboard on it. We left all our belongings (including water bottles!) at the front of the room.

 

'Written' web-based exam (HSK5): the exam strictly follows the timing and order i.e. you do the listening part first, then reading, then writing. What this means is you cannot do the writing section quickly and give yourself more time for reading (the toughest part of the exam).

For each section, you can go back and edit answers within that section, but you cannot flick between sections.

 

For me, as I grew up in a Chinese-speaking household:

• Listening section: comprehending the listening section was fairly easy but the hard part was reading all the answers in allocated time
• Reading section: it was tough - in past papers, I'd always struggled to complete all the questions and the exam was no exception, I ended up guessing the last two sets of multiple choice questions. It's both speed and comprehension, with quite a few 'additional' words thrown in that aren't part of the syllabus
• Writing section: fairly easy for me due to the low character count, and no requirement to write "fancy/formal" Chinese. Keep it simple and grammatically correct.

 

Oral exam (HSKK Advanced): this is where it got interesting for me. My teachers all said I'd have no problem with the oral exam as I am a fluent speaker due to my background. However, this was my lowest scoring section by far - I scraped a pass (61)!

 

Reflecting on it, I think this is due to several factors:

1. As the oral exam covers both HSK5 and HSK6, the 'read aloud' section often contains characters I don't know

2. Some of the discussion topics (especially the second topic!) are more abstract and requires vocab that I didn't have

3. I know everyone is in the same room, but I was really distracted during the oral exam by the other test takers. As everyone repeats / answers questions at the same time, I found it very hard to concentrate. It didn't help that we were told to shout into the microphone (the mics weren't v sensitive) so there were 30+ people shouting out their answers. I genuinely think it'd be helpful to practice the oral exam with several channels of TV/radio on in the background, at a loud volume.

 

Hope this is helpful!

 

[PandaCat]

Hi there @becky82 I seem to recall that you took a few of your HSK tests in Beijing. Do you think there's a difference between the quality of test centres? (classroom environment, quality of microphone, etc). If so, are there any test centres which you recommend / to avoid? 

I'm planning to sign up for HSK test in Beijing soon and I'm not sure if I should just pick the nearest test centre or choose somewhere slightly further (but perhaps better)

[becky82]

I took the HSK5 in one venue 北京博瑞智文化交流中心, and the HSK6 twice at one venue 北京外交人员语言文化中心 (all three in Beijing).  I've only ever taken handwritten exams, and at the time the HSKK wasn't needed, so I've never taken the HSKK.  So no microphones involved.  The CD player at the second venue had some issues, but it wasn't a big deal.

 

The first venue had about 5 or 6 students in a small room, and they mostly just left us alone.  The second venue was something like 30 students in the same room, and people watched us the entire time.  I preferred the first venue, since there were fewer distractions (e.g., in the second venue, the organizers would yell instructions during the reading time, which was a bit distracting).  The second venue had many people attending multiple exams in parallel, and it was a bit of a hassle figuring everything out.

 

It may just be luck of the draw.

[PandaCat]

Good to know, thanks for the information! 👍

[Pomelofruit]

I just got my results for HSK6 and I passed! 😊 

Got 227/300, splits: 89 listening / 66 reading / 72 writing.

 

Like others have warned, the actual exam is harder than the HSK 2.0 (free) mock exams compiled by @大块头 here (https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/57686-collection-of-all-hsk-6-practice-exams-released-by-hanban/). I did 10x mock exams and was consistently getting 94+ on the listening, 80+ on the reading (I was unable to self-grade the written section), but felt really unsure when I came out of the actual exam. 

 

Here were my reflections:

'Written' web-based exam (HSK6):

I went to a different exam hall in Beijing but the set-up was largely the same: computer, desk, headphones with in-built mic. One positive is that the invigilators allowed a water bottle (which my last examiners did not).

 

The exam strictly follows the timing and order i.e. you do the listening part first, then reading, then writing. What this means is you cannot do the writing section quickly and give yourself more time for reading (the toughest part of the exam).

For each section, you can go back and edit answers within that section, but you cannot flick between sections.

• Listening: harder than the mocks and I'm pleasantly shocked that I got 89 to be honest
  • The content itself was more challenging which meant I couldn't skim read the answers when listening to the text
  • The multiple choice answers were often long thereby challenging for my reading speed
  • The answers were synonyms for what you hear, and often contained two answers that were similar in meaning (in the mocks, a lot of the answers were direct transcriptions of the text)
  • Take-away: you need a good reading speed to answer the questions, and a good memory to remember all the details especially in the interviews part!
• Reading: lots of unfamiliar characters and more complex sentence structures, and I really struggled with timing. Normally in mocks, I would leave 5-10 qus blank due to time pressure; on the exam, I had to guess 17 (out of 50!) questions
  • I read on a Reddit post (can't find it now!) that someone recommended skipping the grammar questions as they take up the most time, and I also decided to follow this strategy
  • However, in hindsight, I wish I had attempted some of the easier grammar questions because the last two long-passage questions were so tough and I wasted a lot of time
• Writing: similar to the mocks in terms of difficulty. One important point I haven't seen being discussed is how the written section is marked. From what I've seen online (my cohort's percentile ranks don't seem to be out yet), a score of 90 = 99% percentile, 77 = 90% percentile which is much lower than the other two sections. My Chinese teacher said that it's because HSK6 written section is marked like this:
  • High scoring bucket: score of 80-100. Cannot have a single grammatical error or misspelling (eek!)
  • Middle scoring bucket: score of 60-79. Some minor errors allowed 
  • Low scoring bucket: below 59

 

 

The HSKK Oral exam results aren't out yet but I'm pretty confident that I passed (given that I got 61/100 last year when I took the HSK5 exam, and my Chinese has improved since then)

• One thing I noticed the student behind me do, which is incorrect, is that before the exam begins you need to answer a few questions like 你叫什么名字? etc. They mistakenly repeated this question rather than answer the question (" 我叫XYZ"), because the first section of the oral exam is to repeat a passage
• Another heads up: my computer experienced a glitch which meant that the timings were incorrect for the third section (question & answer section) - it was 20-30 seconds out, which meant I didn't know exactly how long I'd been speaking for (the aim is to speak for 2:00 to 2:30 mins). Thankfully I'd practiced this Q&A section extensively beforehand so had a rough idea on how much to speak, otherwise I would've easily been under time.

 

Preparation for the exam

I followed the standard HSK6 textbooks and completed all the exercises in them, but didn't use the accompanying workbooks

• It was a mixture of self-study, weekly reviews with my mum (who is a native Chinese speaker) and 8 hours of lessons just before the exam with a Chinese teacher who has tutored HSK6 students before
• From the 30th chapter onwards, I would write a 400 character summary of the c.1,000 character text as exam prep

 

I aimed to read an article on WeChat every few days, and browse 小红书 / watch some livestreams (for light hearted learning 😊).

 

Exam prep was plenty of mocks. My vocab was the limiting factor, so I would go back after every mock to look up words I didn't know. It was useful to review new words like this in the context of a piece of text, rather than by itself. I must admit I've never gotten used to using flashcards...

 

---

 

In general, I'm pleased with my progress from HSK5 to HSK6. I can now get the gist of most 'everyday' articles (news articles are harder), and I'm motivated to continue studying so that I can read and understand even more Chinese!

 

 

Hope this was helpful!

 

Edited July 9, 2024 at 06:40 AM by Pomelofruit

[becky82]

  

Congratulations!  That's awesome!

 

On 7/9/2024 at 2:24 PM, Pomelofruit said:

I read on a Reddit post (can't find it now!) that someone recommended skipping the grammar questions as they take up the most time, and I also decided to follow this strategy

 

Was this my post?  I don't think I'd say I recommend skipping them (some are easy, some are impossible); my recommendation would be to improve your reading speed and fluency, and study the easy-to-identify grammar errors.  But some people skip it, and I think it's a reasonable tactic to save time and score more in the other sections; the best I can do is go from 2 or 3 marks from blindly guessing, to 6 to 7 marks from carefully considering them (so that's a max 8% improvement for a cost of 10 minutes exam time).  Besides, some of the "grammar errors" I've seen are debatable.

 

On 7/9/2024 at 2:24 PM, Pomelofruit said:

Listening: ... The multiple choice answers were often long thereby challenging for my reading speed

 

Indeed, reading plays an important role in all three sections (listening, reading, and writing) of the HSK, and even the speaking of the HSKK.  It's part of the reason why I weight reading more heavily in my study.

 

On 7/9/2024 at 2:24 PM, Pomelofruit said:

One important point I haven't seen being discussed is how the written section is marked.

 

Curious.  I didn't notice how the writing section marks scale substantially differently to the other sections.  The marking scheme says:

 

Quote

高档分：内容与提供材料相符，结构合理，表达连贯，无语法错误、错别字。

 

So yeah... you cannot have grammar errors nor incorrect characters if you want full marks.  A native speaker said they scored 82 in the writing section:

 

Quote

I just did the actual HSK 6 test (computer based). I got 99 on reading, 95 on listening, and 82 on writing. The listening was hard indeed, but what’s even harder is the writing. I’m a native speaker and a Chinese language instructor, and I was typing on a computer, so obviously there couldn’t be any blatant grammatical or spelling errors. They must be looking for a good prose rather than my mundane language.

 

So there you go... a native-speaking Chinese language instructor only got 95 in the listening section, and you got 89.  Just, wow!  I'd be very satisfied if I got that.  Any advice?  I'm particularly interested in hearing how you prepared for this section.

 

On 7/9/2024 at 2:24 PM, Pomelofruit said:

I was unable to self-grade the written section

 

Welcome to the world of ChatGPT and various other genAIs.  They can read handwriting too nowadays.

[Lu]

@becky82, there is no delete button, to ensure that threads don't get confusing if someone would delete a post. But you can 'Report' a post, which flags it for the moderators, and we can remove it. As I just did for your duplicate post 🙂

[Pomelofruit]

Thanks Becky

 

On 7/9/2024 at 3:31 PM, becky82 said:

Was this my post?

It wasn’t your post 🙂  but my VPN often doesn’t let me access Reddit so I can’t find the original post (actually, I can’t access Reddit at all for the last few weeks)

 

On 7/9/2024 at 3:31 PM, becky82 said:

So yeah... you cannot have grammar errors nor incorrect characters if you want full marks.

Yep, so it’s very difficult to get above 80 in the writing section. At first I was a bit annoyed by my teacher giving me low marks, and then she explained why 🙃

 

On 7/9/2024 at 3:31 PM, becky82 said:

a native-speaking Chinese language instructor only got 95 in the listening section, and you got 89.  Just, wow!  I'd be very satisfied if I got that.  Any advice?  I'm particularly interested in hearing how you prepared for this section.

Thank you, I was genuinely surprised by the score too as I felt really unsure when answering the questions.
 

To be honest, I didn’t particularly practice listening but I grew up in a Chinese household with mandarin-speaking parents and watched mandarin TV… so I’ve encountered most “scenarios” in some shape or form. Sorry, I know that doesn’t help you! But I do think watching TV helps, you pick up so much vocab in-context.

 

On 7/9/2024 at 3:31 PM, becky82 said:

Welcome to the world of ChatGPT and various other genAIs.  They can read handwriting too nowadays.

I’d be curious to know how you use it! I would get my Chinese teacher or my mum to grade my passages.

[1moamelsabah]

So, I took the HSK 5 & HSKK Advanced last month and here are my results:

 

For the listening part I scored 75, I was not surprised because actually this is my best ability in Chinese.

 

For the Reading part I scored 64, I actually expected this score since it was the hardest part actually, the time was very short I was barely able to finish it on time.

 

For the writing I was actually a bit surprised, I actually expected it to be better, I only scored 61, never thought it would be my weakest part, I thought the speaking would be!

 

Surprisingly the Speaking part (HSKK-Advanced) was the second high score (71) I actually thought I would fail this part and even be able to get the pass mark (60), however it came out like this, I am still very unaware of how this happened 😂.

 

 

 

[PandaCat]

@1moamelsabah Congratulations! I also took the HSK5 and HSKK Advanced this month. I felt HSK5 was slightly harder than the mock tests that I previously did. But I'll pass. However HSKK Advanced was quite a disaster, I could barely understand most of the Part 1 portion. Right now I'm just hoping I could unexpectedly pass like you 😊

[becky82]

Well, I went ahead and booked in for the HSK6 (handwritten) + HSKK advanced exam in October  (53 days from now).  The HSK6 has been a kind of Damocles sword over my head for a long time.

 

This will be my third time taking the exam.  The first time was March 2022 (listening: 52 reading: 63 writing: 55 [sum 170]) and the second time was October 2022 (listening: 56 reading: 55 writing: 45 [sum 156]), so my marks dropped substantially despite studying full time for months.

 

October will be almost exactly 2 years now since I took it last time.  I realize that my Chinese is substantially more advanced then 2 years ago, but I'm still nervous and pessimistic.  I can't afford to keep wasting money on this exam (1100 yuan, and travel costs), and my exam results from last time was a heavy mental blow.

[Pomelofruit]

@becky82 Sending 'good luck' and 'you'll nail it' vibes!

[PandaCat]

Got my HSK5 and HSKK Advanced results! Both the results was shown on the same piece of certificate (one of my classmates told me not to worry about failing the HSKK exam since the results wouldn't show on the HSK certificate 🤔🤔)

 

 

Pretty satisfied with HSK5 results, and glad I managed to pass the speaking test (it honestly went pretty badly during exam day!).

 

A year ago before coming to China, HSK5 felt like a very difficult mountain to climb. Even though at that point I've already completed studying the HSK4 coursebook, I've always felt like my actual Chinese level was stuck at the early stages of HSK4, and my speaking ability even lower than that.

 

After a year at BFSU 北京外国语大学, I signed up for the HSK5 test only because the scholarship covered the test fees. Prior to the test, I didn't do any studying apart from trying out 3 sets of HSK5 and HSKK Advanced past year papers just to get a feel of the test structure. All I relied on was what I studied at BFSU during the academic year. Although the teaching materials were different (we did not follow the standard HSK coursebook, thus the vocab learned was not the same but there was some overlap), overall the year at BFSU allowed me to pass HSK5 easily and organically (not by specifically studying for the test or memorizing the vocab list). 

 

My Chinese speaking has also improved although it still is a weak point for me. I tend to be pretty bad at expressing myself / my views verbally (not just in Chinese) so this is one aspect I need to improve on. The HSKK Advanced definitely tests this aspect of our speaking ability (eg. asking us to explain a social phenomenon and elaborate on our view / opinion on it).

 

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.

 

 

Lastly, good luck to @becky82 for your HSK6 exam! I didn't have the confidence to attempt HSK6 as it's so difficult and a huge step up from HSK5. Hoping to one day reach the stage where I can also take it.

 

[becky82]

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

I didn't have the confidence to attempt HSK6 as it's so difficult and a huge step up from HSK5. Hoping to one day reach the stage where I can also take it.

 

Well you're certainly off to a good start.  Your HSK5 marks are phenomenal---well done!