Business Chinese Test Exam - review

[prateeksha]

After appearing for the BCT today I decided to post a review of the exam for the benefit of other exam-takers. There is practically no information available about BCT online, I remember how I wished someone could throw some light on it. Anyway, here's my review.

Preparation

Nothing special, really. I am taking a 4-hour per week Business Chinese course as a part of my curriculum in BLCU so that gives me a good idea about business terminology. Honestly speaking, BCT does not use a lot of 专门词语. When I was looking in bookshops to buy study material I came across some books which only laid out the vocabulary for BCT. If you have some background in business Chinese [which I assume would be, why would someone appear for this exam without any knowledge] I would suggest you do not need to buy the vocabulary books.

As goes with all the Chinese proficiency tests, solving sample papers s the best way to "prepare" for the exam. I bought this book from amazon.cn. There are several of them listed on Amazon, but when I went to my university bookstore to check their contents I found out most of them usually have only 2 or 3 sample papers, which does not feel very worthy of 60 yuan. This book has 5 听-读 sample papers, 5 写-说 sample papers and detailed answers. The sample questions are of good difficulty level and quite similar [in terms of difficulty and structure] to the questions in real exam.

Registration

Dates are listed on the Hanban website. The 听-读 test costs 120 yuan and is basically a unified, single exam for all levels 1-5.

Examination

The candidates were asked to arrive half an hour before the commencement of exam. I think it's better to be there as directed, because they give you a lot of stuff you have to fill up before you start the exam. There was a leaflet of personal questions like - how long have you been studying Chinese, why are you taking this test [for personal assessment, for getting a promotion, for seeking a job etc.], how often do you use Chinese in your life, what percentage of your work could be called related to Chinese, what is your profession, how relevant do you think 听 - 读 - 说 - 写 [all to be judged individually] are for you from your work point of view.

They then give everybody the answer sheet on which you are supposed to fill more details - examination roll number, exam centre number, mother tongue, country code and what not.

There are 2 different sets of questions papers so the person ahead of you and right behind you is marking different answers for the same question.

Structure

I appeared only for the 听读 exam, so can speak in detail only about the same.

听力部分 comprises of 50 questions. Questions 1-12 are rather simple but sometimes tricky. One person asks a question, and you have to select the best answer out of A/B/C played right after the question. For example:

问：请问你找谁？

A：王经理 B：我去找他 C：他在楼上

The question and answers both are not given on the question paper.

Questions 13-32 will have a short description/dialogue and based on it you have to select the best answer printed on the question paper.

Questions 33-42 have rather long passages and each passage has 3-4 questions based on it. The good part is that before beginning to speak the passage, the questions are read out [in the 录音 Itself], so you get sometime to read the answers quickly.

Questions 43-50 require you to write 汉字。 A record of intermediate length will be played, you have to listen and fill in the 汉字, usually not more than two for every question. There is almost always one question based on a person's resume or 留言 which requires to write down the name of person, age, telephone number or such simple details.

阅读部分 comprises of 50 questions and is of 1-hour duration. Questions 51-72 have a piece of text - a text message, an advertisement, a jar label, a notice, a receipt and some passages. You have to answer questions based on the text.

Questions 73-84 have a long passage with several blank spaces for one word each. Each blank has 4 possible answers which are all synonyms or confusing words. You have to select the most suitable word.

Questions 85-94 [or rather 85-89 and 90-94] have sets of 5 questions given beforehand. For example:

1. Which flight is shortest?

2. Which flight is cheapest?

3.

4.

5. Which flight connects at HK?

Then they provide you 4 pieces of text. In this example, four flight schedules. You have to choose A/B/C/D for each question accordingly.

Questions 95-100 are based on a long passage and require you to write 汉字。

Personal impression

Although a bit nervous before appearing for the exam because of lack of exhaustive practice and information about it, I would say it is a rather comfortable exam. The questions require you to use a lot of logic instead of just knowledge of grammar and vocabulary. I am not sure how good can this serve to be an indicator of your real business Chinese proficiency level, but the same goes with HSK and the other exams as well. I think after being at the [university level] 中级-下 the test feels relaxed and there are a lot of things one can understand even if they have not pursued business Chinese as a separate course.

Waiting for the results now!

[roddy]

Thanks for the write-up! (and moving to the Exams forum)

[kdavid]

Great write-up. Always good to have information about these sorts of things.

Question:

Who needs to take this type of exam? Is this test in a position to displace the HSK?

Based on the example you provided:

问：请问你找谁？

A：王经理 B：我去找他 C：他在楼上

...it seems the BCT may be simpler than the HSK. I'd imagine anyone engaging in regular business interactions with Chinese in Chinese would already have a superb working knowledge of the language, and would be in the advanced HSK range. Under such circumstances, why take the BCT?

[prateeksha]

kdavid, I am in in no position to comment if BCT can replace HSK. I think both the exams have their own place under the sun. The example I stated here is of course rather simple. Actually this is the sample example question they play in the 模拟试卷 and 考试录音 both. For someone who already has a superior level of knowledge [certified by HSK or by experience], these questions are rather banal.

However, as I said, this is a combined exam to gauge levels ranging from complete beginner to expert. The initial questions are simpler, but the difficulty keeps increasing. Question 33-42 in 听力部分 narrate financial reports, export-import datasheets and interviews with experts. Indeed requiring quite some 专门 vocabulary. Someone might be an HSK level 6 holder, but not necessarily know the words specific to business. The 阅读部分 requires you to read the annual reports, factsheets, compare CIF and FOB prices and the like. Some of these things I would have never known had I not taken Business Chinese as a course in school.

And last but not the least, I guess many of us take these tests to make our resumes look prettier. An official certification has never, ever been known to hurt

[kdavid]

Good points!

I'm interested to see whether or not companies start requiring a certain level of this for consideration.

[lansora]

I signed up for this site for this exact reason, so thank you so much for sharing this. I would say my Chinese is upper-intermediate to advanced now, and I was looking at what was the best way to let future employers know of my Chinese level, and if they even knew what the HSK or BCT

[roddy]

I wouldn't expect many people to know about it, but if you say Grade A in Business Chinese Test (or whatever, I don't know how the grading works) on a CV and mention in a covering letter that you studied relevant terminology while preparing for the BCT, they'll figure it out.

[Silent]

I was looking at what was the best way to let future employers know of my Chinese level, and if they even knew what the HSK or BCT

I'ld say just put it on the C.V. (language, skill, level) as a real score or as an indication if you didn't do an official test. If your prospect employer is interested he'll google it. If it's relevant for the position you can point it out in the letter too and they probably know about the common language tests. Otherwise I see little reason to make a fuss about it. Everyone has some 'odd' fairly irrelevant skills.