HSK Advanced - 水中捞月吗？

[边斌同学]

Hi everyone,

Long time reader, first time poster. Currently planning to take the HSK（北语版）as part of the process of applying to grad school here in China. I'm having a bit of trouble gauging my current ability as well as the feasibility of getting a passing grade by test time (April 16, 2011).

I took my first practice test today (北京语言大学出版社的《HSK高等，最新模拟试题集，2008年最新版》）and despite having read several board members' accounts of the test still found it remarkably hard. The results left me pretty disappointed, but due to the fact that the test is standardized, I don't know how close my grades actually are to passing. Sub-section grades were:

听力（22／40）

This was the only section that was easier than I had expected. I know my grades don't show it, but during the listening portion I found I was able to keep up with the speaker and understand pretty much everything they were saying. The main problem was that I didn't write anything down during the listening and tried to rely entirely on memory to answer the questions. My fear is that, as many posters have mentioned, the practice exam listening might be far easier than the actual test. The speed was very reasonable, there was no background noise, and no noticeable accents. Should I be preparing myself for a far harder actual exam?

阅读（21／40）

I hit this portion and panicked. The first 15 minutes I only answered 9 of the 15 questions. The second 25 minute part I was able to recover slightly and answer 21 of the 25. So for the questions I answered my score was (21/30) which seems OK, I just need to get the reading speed up 20% or so.

综合（16／40）

Sadly not the worst part of the test. Middle two sections (MC Fill-in-the-blank and Sentence Ordering) went well with (7/10) and (6/10) respectively. However, Spot-the-error and Fill-in-the-汉字 brought my overall score down with (3/10) and (0/10 -- yup, not a single character right). This section is especially tough for me as I've only been learning Chinese for about a year and a half now and have not yet had time to develop a good 语感.

作文

I managed to get 400-some characters and stay on topic. Upon correcting, I discovered 3 错别字 but overall it was OK. This section shouldn't be a serious problem, as the past 3 months I have been writing a 400-600 character essay in 30 minutes every day as part of my test preparation.

口试

Thanks to this tragedy the 综合 wasn't my worst section. The 朗读 went OK as there were only one or two characters I didn't recognize, but when it got to the first question I completely froze. Even though I was just in my room speaking to my computer I couldn't get out more than a few words, let alone a complete sentence. I rallied slightly for the second question and was able to string together 3 or 4 sentences to answer the question somewhat. The thing is, in daily life (chatting with neighbors, explaining games to kids in class, arguing with bank tellers) I have no problem with speaking. I had expected this portion of the test to be the easiest for me, but discovered that this type of formal test speaking is problem my weakest area.

Anyway, looking at the subsection scores, do I have a hope of being able to pass the Advanced (I only need a 9) by April? I'm confident after a month of serious training (I usually train about 7-9 hours a day) I will be able to get 听力 and 阅读 consistently above 27. However, I'm afraid I might not be able to get 综合 above a 20 or so, is this enough to clear the 底线?

As for 口试, I purchased《21天征服HSK（高等）口试》 as well as found a nice Chinese teacher to meet with me every day and help me practice my oral Chinese for the next month, so I'm hoping I'll be able to make it through this portion.

Well, I wrote a lot. Thanks for those of you who took the time to read it, and I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts/opinions/suggestions. Thanks!

[边斌同学]

Well, I ended up not doing the Advanced and just taking the Elementary-Intermediate. Just got done with the test today. Thoughts:

1) The listening was a bit harder than I expected. Most of the colloquial expressions they used I had never encountered on any of my practice tests. The long dialogue sections were relatively easy though.

2) Grammar, reading, and comprehensive were all noticeably easier than the practice tests I was taking.

3) The answer sheet was layed out differently than the practice tests. The sheet they used this time first went left to right, than top to bottom. (Practice tests were top to bottom then left to right.) Luckily I noticed right away, but I saw the person sitting next to me had her fill-in-the-character answers all put in in the wrong order...

Anyway overall I felt pretty good about the test and I'm hoping I'll be able to test a solid 8. If they're still doing the advanced next year I'll probably give it another try then.

[边斌同学]

Yup I beat the crap out of that test!