Need help gauging my level

[yialanliu]

I am planning on taking the upcoming HSK test this April. Gowever, I am rather new to HSK.

Here are my experience:

I am a current college sophmore.

I came here to the United States when I was 5 from Shanghai, China. By the time I was in 8th grade, I had lost almost all of my ability to read and write or rather haven't really gained those abilities. However, I am still completely fluent in mandarin.

In 9th grade, I scored a 680/800 for the SAT IIs. (I don't know how good that is as the percentile was quite low)

In college, I have studied for 3 semesters of native speaker chinese which means I have completely finished book 3 of the chinese practical reader textbook.

Over the last summer I held an internship where I was the only person who understood english. I used no english during the 4 months and have found that while my speaking is fluent for day-to-day activities, some of the business terms were above me but I did improve over the 4 months.

I personally believe that my speaking should be no problems at all as I am a native speaker, I was just wondering how you would rate my chinese with the vocabulary of vol. 3 of the chinese practical reader textbook and grammar that is above my level of vocab but below my speaking skills.

Thanks,

~yialanliu

[renzhe]

It's very hard to guess these things. Your best bet is to try a mock-up test and see how it feels. You could have a look at popup-chinese.com, they have some exercises for the HSK.

Much will depend on how well you can read. At the intermediate level, reading speed is very useful because there is lots of text to cover, and everything is written in Chinese. Speaking and listening alone won't help much, as the HSK tests everything. A bad reading score will drag your grade down.

[skylee]

Can you understand a sophisticated Chinese novel, like a Louis Cha novel or an Eileen Chang novel, or appreciate the 300 Tang poetry (pre-university level)?

PS - Or can you write an essay of 500 to 800 characters (i.e. 2 pages) on any subjects assigned by a teacher (pre-university level)? Or one of 100 to 400 characters (pre-secondary level)?

Edited January 15, 2010 at 03:08 PM by skylee

[yialanliu]

I would say my reading is pretty good but writing unless it is on a computer is pretty bad so I can definitely see that bringing my score down. I can easily write 100-300 words without a problem. I've only written 500-1000 words twice in my life to be honest as even memos I wrote in China were shorter.

Another note: For the istening are we allowed to take notes as we listen? Since I am fluent, I can translate it on the spot but would like to write it down, is that allowed?

Edited January 16, 2010 at 10:13 PM by yialanliu

[chrix]

100-300 words (characters?) within what time frame?

[yialanliu]

On a computer it'd take me 5 minutes per 75 words. By hand, I can only write about 30 - 40 words every 5 minutes so half what I can do on a computer.

[chrix]

Because for the old-style HSK Advanced, you need to write 400-600 words in 30 minutes, by hand.

Since you maintained the Chinese language at home, your biggest weakness will probably, apart from writing the characters, be your vocabulary (by which I mean "advanced vocabulary" since you missed all that education in Chinese native speakers go through in China). The best way is to start reading lots and lots of books.

Good luck

[imron]

For the istening are we allowed to take notes as we listen?

Yes, and all the practice material I have seen for listening encourages this.