study for the HSK

[Scoobyqueen]

I am wondering which way is the most efficient way to study for the HSK

[wushijiao]

Whereas if you analyse the answers you may get to learn new vocab as well as patterns and grammar rules. So would it be reasonable to spend 10 percent on doing the timed mock-test and the rest of the time analysing questions?

I hope heifeng and roddy see this, since they are the best HSKers here, as far as I know.

Personally, when "prepping" for the HSK, I've done about a 10% ratio. Although, I must say, although I find the HSK to be a great tool towards improving one's level in general, specific test prep I find to be very, very boring. (However, this is perhaps because I find explicit grammar and test review to be extremely boring, and it's like pulling teeth for me. Other people might enjoy it more, or might have a stronger intrinsic interest on doing well on the test. If that fits your personality or your goals, then I see no reason to temporarily make the percentage as high as possible ).

With that said, certain HSK test prep materials can be very useful towards the test and your overall skills, especially at the Elem/Int level.

[chrix]

Yeah, I just signed up for an "old HSK" test for beginner-intermediate, which will be administered next Saturday, so I've got six days. Probably I'll only have like 1-2 hrs each day or so of time to prepare for it. This is actually fine because I just wanted to take the test first to see where I am (and I do assume you can retake the test without penalties). However, what do you think should I spend the most time on:

- doing a test-run using a mock-up test as can be found on the forums

- completing as many exercises of the only useful HSK prep book I own, HSK 词汇精解. It basically groups words of similar meaning together (for instance 安定，稳定，固定，安全，平安) and discusses where they might differ in connotation and usage. I find it very useful to work on your vocabulary, but how useful might it be for a high-pressure prep run for the HSK?

- looking at the HSK vocabulary lists, there might be too little time left though for this to be useful.

- since the Mandarin I studied was basically 台灣國語, I need to adjust to 普通话 standards. This would include:

1. 简体字: I do think I have sufficient character recognition, almost on a par with 繁體字, and as far as I understand, there is no writing for 初中

2. Tones: some characters are pronounced differently in the Taiwan standard, as has also been discussed on the forums. It's been one of my ongoing Mandarin study projects to assemble a list of character whose pronunciation differs across the Strait, and this shouldn't too hard.

3. 轻声 and 儿化: since the neutral tone is rarely used, this might be a problem. I've downloaded a list (link also on the forums) with over 500 words that do have it. Of course those with a neutral suffix such as -子，-头，-巴 are easy, but it might still be a couple 100 words. How important is this? Do they consistently take off points if you write shíhòu instead of shíhou for 时候 for instance. As far as 儿化 is concerned, since no production is required for this level, this wouldn't concern me at this point.

Any advice is appreciated

Chrix

[natra]

Are you in China? Sign up for an HSK prep course if you are. A 10 week prep course that meets 5 days a week for 90 minutes is not that expensive.

If not:

1. Buy one of those HSK prep books for whichever level test you are taking.

2. Get a tutor to go over the questions you get wrong.

3. Review and do more stupid mock exams.

[chrix]

I'm not in China, can only rely on the books I have here. So there's basically no HSK-related infrastructure here...

[natra]

Hmm... Maybe you can hire a tutor to go over mock exams with you.

I know there are a lot of people on http://www.edufire.com/ who offer HSK tutoring.

[chrix]

OK, thanks. Just a question: what would these HSK tutors exactly do? I'm just asking because this is my first time ever on this test, so I can't really say at this point what my needs are. I might probably know better after I take the test, so maybe I'd just go for some prepping on my own until then and see what's gonna happen...

[natra]

I think it just depends on the tutor.

I took an HSK prep course last year and we just went over mock exams (HSK模拟考试) that the three of us in the class had done at home before hand.

The tutor you contact can probably help you find all the materials.

[natra]

Just out of curiosity, why even take the HSK?

[chrix]

To be able to document your level of Chinese? I'm under the impression that you can retake the same level without penalties, so the best way to understand how things work and whether you need to prepare more in case you need this for a job is to just take it, or am I overlooking something here?

[chrix]

I'm just doing a mock-up test, and I'm wondering, wasn't there a part where you had to give the reading for characters in pinyin, or this not part of the 初中？I just checked the HSK site, am I confusing this with something? Because if there's no pinyin to give, then all my above points about differing pronunciations in Taiwan and qingsheng and so forth are of course moot...

[renzhe]

So how did you do?

[roddy]

There's no part of the 初中 where you need to write down pinyin. Maybe in one of the other exams.

Either way, knowing your 轻声s and so on will stand you in good stead for the speaking part of the Advanced (and in the revised / new HSKs if they actually happen).

[chrix]

roddy, FULL ACK. As I said knowing the differences between Taiwan Mandarin and Putonghua is one of pet projects anyway, and it might come in handy one day for other reasons as well.

Well, renzhe, here's my experience, I just took the test today in the Philosophenturm (Philosophers' Tower ):

I signed up spontaneously one week ago, and virtually didn't prepare at all, except for reading through 3 chapters out of 24 of the book on vocabulary I mentioned, and doing one mock-up test spread over a few days (just didn't have more time).

Since I was apprehensive about my listening comprehension, and the mock-up test I did didn't provide for audio, I tried the listening exercises over at Popup Chinese, and was quite distressed, because the speakers were speaking freakishly fast, and using all this slang-loaded vocabulary, for some of the exercises I did quite poorly. Imagine my surprise at the test today, when they started off quite slowly and spoke about quite banal topics. In the latter part, where the dialogues were longer, I had trouble following one or two of them, but generally I did okay.

I only got a few wrong in the grammar section (note to self: review classifiers ), did quite well in the reading section (I think reading is my forte), and Zonghe was fine as well, though I didn't know 3 out of 16 characters to fill out (the last one I knew, but couldn't remember how to write )

So I've got a good feeling, let's see what happens when we get the results back in two months.

It seems that some Chinese studies departments in Germany have made it a graduation requirement to pass the intermediate exam (by which they mean not fail the test). Some of my fellow test takers were quite nervous because of this...

Edited November 7, 2009 at 10:04 PM by chrix

[renzhe]

Well, done!

I was planning to take it this year, but then noticed that reading and especially composite needed a lot of work. So that's what I've been concentrating on, before I got too busy with other stuff.

Did you find the test easier or more difficult than the mock-up tests you worked with?

[chrix]

Thanks, renzhe.

I've only tried one mock-up test so far, which didn't have the audio, but for the other parts I think it gave me a realistic impression of what to expect. Like all that biology stuff in the reading section . And I think they were about the same difficulty-wise, though since there's some variation (I suppose they don't use the same test world-wide, do they?) you could always be in bad luck and be caught on the wrong foot...