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

[Kanjiology]

Going to take my HSK 4 exam on December 2nd at Florida International University in Miami.

All the practice tests I've done are on paper and pen. Is there any difference taking the exam on the computer exam? Are all the exams given now on the computer?

[felixfan87]

Ok so after 3 years of study at home and 2 years of living in China.

语言环境是学习外语的关键！

HSK Level 6 and 高级口试

HSKK（高级） 2012-10-21 口试 80.0

HSK六级 2012-10-21

听力 92.0

阅读 94.0

写作 81.0

总分 267.0

[rmpalpha]

Here are the results from the HSK Level 4 test I took in San Francisco in October:

听力: 96/100

阅读: 85/100

写作: 72/100

总分: 253/300

I'm disappointed in my 写作 score as I know my errors were due to grammar and usage mistakes. I will need to focus on that for my next test. It's difficult to get feedback on writing since I don't interact much with Chinese native speakers and am not taking a class. Ah well - I think I did well enough so that my next goal can be the HSK 5 test.

[rmpalpha]

Kanjiology:

There isn't a substantial difference in the listening or reading parts of the test. The writing component is, however, somewhat different as you can type your sentences directly on the screen. The main advantage is that you don't have to write characters from memory but a disadvantage is that, if you don't know how to type a specific character, you're stuck.

[AdamD]

Level 2

听力：99

阅读：99

总分：198

[ZhangKaiRong]

I just took the try-out exam for December 2nd HSK4. I'm very disappointed. I'm currently in China, in a smaller city, so I have to take the exam at my Chinese university's Confucius Institute. Since last year, they only offer the computer-based exam. First I thought that it wouldn't be a problem, but for me, it is. The font type the program use is really, really, really bad, the characters are small and hard to read. I bought the BLCUP's mock exam books, I didn't have any problems with it, I easily passed all the mock exams around 80%. After the computer try-out exam, I have some concerns, due to the font type, I can't read the 阅读 part that fast, and I'm afraid I will run out of time, today I just managed to complete it, but only had 20 seconds left instead of the usual 5-6 minutes. So I don't know what to do, I still have two days... I read a lot in Chinese, but read books with normal font types, and on QQ I also use a decent font type

[li3wei1]

Would it help if the font size was increased? There may be a simple way of zooming the screen or increasing type size. Worth asking.

[Stefani]

I took HSK Level 1 in Dallas, in April 2012.

Listening: 85 / 100

Reading: 100 / 100

Total: 185 / 200 = 92.5%

I am planning to take Level 2 in March 2013.

[大肚男]

I'm taking the HSK 4 this coming Sunday. I'm pretty nervous because I haven't been studying recently.

Good luck to everyone who is also taking it

[大肚男]

BTW, kanjiology, I'm also taking the exam in FIU. Hopefully we can meet before or after the exam, as I would love to meet fellow learners of Chinese.

[ZhangKaiRong]

Just got back from the HSK4 exam. It was easier than i expected, the 模拟考试 was way harder than the actual exam.

听力 part was fine, I only had two questions I didn't hear quite well, but maybe I guessed right. I have to thank my Chinese friends, they helped me a lot to increase my listening skills

I was afraid of the 阅读 part because of the crappy font type the program uses, but in the last two days I read Chinese texts with this font type, so I got used to it, it was absolutely no problem, I even had 15 minutes left before I finished.

I had the most problems with 书写, here in China during conversations and QQ chatting we don't pay so much attention to word order, so I was confused a little bit, but I hope it will be okay.

I still have a semester here, so I will try to pass HSK5 in June.

I cross my fingers for other 考生!

[milin]

I yesterday took the level 5 HSK exam for the second time. In may 2012 I scored a 4.1 on reading and listening, and a 4.4 on writing, but I'm afraid that the grades will be even lower this time.

In the past half year I did the following to prepare for this exam:

- listening: nothing;

- reading: before the exam in may I took about 15 test exams, and the last few months I have been analyzing all the texts of these exams. I have added a number of the new words I encountered to my training program. My presumption was that by trying to really understand all these texts, it would be very beneficial to the exam of 2 december;

- writing: I almost did not practice writing stories, but I did increase the number of characters I can write a bit. Every day I add a new character, but I'm still just at about 500 characters. So for example, yesterday I wanted to use the word help (帮助) in a sentence, but I didn't know how to write the 1st character. So I didn't get very far with the stories at the end.

Afterwards I talked with another guy who is quite proficient in Chinese (he lived in China for some time and he has a Chinese girlfriend), but he also thought the level 5 texts were quite hard. I always (in all of the text exams) have a lot of trouble finishing the reading part (usually I have to gamble 15 to 20 questions), but this time it was even worse.

Since about 200 level 5 words are still lacking in my training, I'm going to add those in the next half year, I'm going to continue to fully understand the level 5 reading texts of the test exams (with the help of 2 Chinese students), and after that I'm going to read level 6 texts. Finally I have never really followed a course, so I think I'm going to read (and practice) the New Practical Chinese Reader books. Because I think at this level you really need more knowledge of grammar and the way sentences are built.

[大肚男]

I sat for the HSK 4 exam yesterday.

For what it's worth, I thought that the listening part was harder than the practice test, with some of the dialogue being so long, that by the end of it, I cant remember how it started.

I felt that the reading part was a piece of cake, and is a bit easier than the practice.

As to the writing part, I don't think it was particularly hard, but I got stuck on some words that I just couldn't remember (like Piano), or a word that I didn't know how to write in pinyin.

All in all, I don't think that I will pass, but that may be due to my recent lack of motivation to actively study Chinese, rather than the exam being hard.

[ouafouaf]

I took level 5 yesterday in Paris. And it was painful!

The week before the test I took a shot at the online cram test on the official website, and tried a couple of other cram tests (all for level 5 of course) from different sources. I had a nearly perfect score on all of them, and even found it boringly easy. So I went to the exam very confident. But it wasn't nearly as easy as expected!

Having also tried cram tests for level 6 (both on the official page and other sources), I can assure you that yesterday's level 5 test in Paris was definately more difficult than all the level 6 cram tests I've seen! I wonder wtf happened here......

How do the results work anyway? Do we "pass" over a certain grade, and fail otherwise? Or do they simply give us our grade, without any "pass" or "fail" mention? If I need to get over 60/100 or 70/100 to "have" my HSK5 it should be ok, but if it's only a grade, showing a 72/100 (probably the grade Im gonna get) at a job interview would be quite lame...

[Silent]

but if it's only a grade, showing a 72/100 (probably the grade Im gonna get) at a job interview would be quite lame...

Why would that be lame? 72% sounds like a fine grade to me. Actually I think it's about the best grade you could get. If you get a really high grade they might think you lack confidence and should have taken the HSK6. If the actual level of Chinese is a real issue for the employer I doubt a couple of percent makes a real difference. They would most likely define a level that you have to pass, not a grade on a certain level.

[milin]

Just when the new HSK exams were introduced (in 2010), I started doing them: level 1 and 2 written in 2010, level 1/2 oral in 2010, level 3 and 4 written in 2011, and level 5 (failed at least once and probably twice) in 2012. From the beginning I started recording all my experiences, idea's about improving my results, information about test exams, etc., on a web page. After every exam I take, or when I learn things at a forum (like here), I am adding to the page or improving it. Keep in mind that I'm not a native English speaker though, so there will be some erros in my English. Nevertheless, since the info might benefit other users, here it is:

http://home.hccnet.nl/h.dalmolen/En/China/HSK.htm

[ZhangKaiRong]

HSK4, December 2, results are online!

Mine is:

听力：81

阅读：84

书写：69

Total: 234/300, 78%

I'm quite satisfied with my results, in September I got to China with a good HSK2/low HSK3 knowledge of Chinese, so I guess I should call this an improvement. I only regret that I haven't prepared for the 书写 part, taking the test I felt that a lot of my answers can be really unappropiate. But since then, I improved my grammar skills, so I hope next time it won't be a problem at all. I quite proud of 阅读 and 听力, when I got here in September I really really lack these skills, but know it's 还可以, I started to read Chinese novels and watching Chinese movies, as well as made some good friends who help me raise my listening skills.

Anyway, Happy New Year everybody!

[大肚男]

My results are

听力：87

阅读：92

书写：61

Total: 240/300, 80%

I'm pretty happy with my results, except for the writing part (which is no surprised to be honest, I'm a bit surprised that I passed, but I'm not complaining

[peterlkj]

HSK 5 result in, 212/300 overall. Onwards!

[Sydney Matt]

It's finally hit me - I'm taking HSK 6 tomorrow morning. Wish me luck!