Anyone Taken the HSK Advanced

[doraemon]

Chrix, I believe it's a combination of all these factors you mentioned but personally, I feel the most important one is being able to articulate your thoughts in a clear, concise and coherent manner. You should make good use of your time and say as much as you can but if you feel there's nothing left to talk about, I would suggest that you stop and move on. Say anymore and you might find yourself stuttering like I did and try not to repeat yourself too much. It wouldn't hurt to use sophisticated expressions and phrases just to give your response a touch of class.

In terms of grammar, pronunciation and tones, I guess you do need to be strong in these fields as well to get an A-range mark, but in my case, the examiner said my pronunciation, tones, grammar and all these technical aspects of the language were perfect, but because I said too little (lasted less than 5 minutes), stuttered and repeated myself too much (from a combination of nerves, inexperience and weakness in speaking), I only just received a B range mark. Two marks below that and I would've been denied an overall grade A regardless of how much better I performed in my other sections. I still get the shivers (not literally, of course) thinking about what might have happened otherwise if the markers were a little harder on me.

Anyway, back to my point... yeah... so I think the most important thing in speaking would be the last thing you mentioned. Even if your Mandarin isn't that perfect but you're able to deliver an organised and sophisticated and preferably deep response, it would earn you quite a high mark.

I wish you all the very best!

Edited December 8, 2009 at 05:24 AM by doraemon

[chrix]

Thank you doraemon, for your explanation and your words of encouragement.

I'm quite self-conscious about my tones, I think I really need to find a good tone tutor. But until then I'll try the Grand First Episode Project

[bunny87]

Back when I took it it was something like 'if you could move to a deserted island, what would you take and what would you do with your time.'

do the test proctors have a sense of humor? would an answer like "bring some HSK prep books and a dictionary" peppered with beautiful phrases in between be better than an actual self reflection with basic phrases and a quote or two from chairman Mao?

I have a terrible test/interview side of me. I become as naive as a new born baby. I'd believe it if the proctor said gullible was written on the roof. That, and i can't keep a serious conversation if I'm not naive, i make everything turn into jokes so I'm wondering if either of these qualities is one i should hire a tutor for to change...

thanks guys!

[doraemon]

Some do have a sense of humour, but I suggest that you shouldn't take your chances. The large majority of Chinese teachers are quite serious to some extent (although that doesn't mean they're mean or anything).

I also don't think it's good to make redundant jokes in case the examiner doesn't laugh and it'll be very awkward. But then again, they're not the ones marking your speaking exam anyway...

I think a quote from Chairman Mao is a great idea but just make sure you're not critical about him (or anything related to China in general). These markers can be very subjective when they want to be. In fact, saying something good about China may improve their impression of you and cause them to be a bit more lenient as opposed to if you were negative...

[AlexL]

Hey all,

I'm not sure if anyone still reads this thread or if I should start a new one, but here goes. I took the Intermediate HSK in November and scraped by with a low 8 (7 in zong he, because of character writing problems). I'm now planning to take the Advanced HSK this April, before it's done away with for good! My teacher has purchased the 汉语水平考试 真提集, which appears to be the only set of real test problems (真题) available. It was published in 2007.

I've looked at the problems and they don't seem as bad as what's been described here. The open-ended reading questions are all relatively straight-forward -- no trick questions to see if you fully understood the passage -- and can be completed by scanning for certain phrases in the text. The relevant characters can be copied if you don't know them. The listening selections were all studio-recorded, and were in context (ie, a full interview, not a section of one). The listening comprehension questions seemed to really test comprehension of what was being said, not of specific chengyu or phrases used in the interviews. The grammatical errors to be searched for and the order-the-sentences exercises also seemed not too tricky.

I'm wondering: am I using a way-too-easy 模拟考试 to prepare for this test? These are supposed to be 真题, but perhaps this is false advertising (or maybe the test has changed). Has anyone seen this series of test prep books? Are they accurate? If not, are there any books you can recommend as being very close to the real test?

I've had a look at the new HSK level 6, which everyone says is much easier than the old Advanced HSK. I'm not sure I agree, based on these practice tests. The reading questions in the new HSK Level 6 may not have as many rare characters, but you actually need to understand the passage and the story in the passage to answer the questions. The new find-the-error questions are as difficult or more difficult than the ones in my old HSK practice tests, partly because you're looking for an error in a full sentence rather than a sentence fragment. In the Old HSK questions, I can usually rule out several options because I know everything in the fragment is right, but in the new one, every sentence has at least a word or clause that I'm not so sure about. The listening comprehension is about the same, maybe a little harder on the old HSK (practice tests that I have). Am I missing something?

Thanks for this great resource, everyone!

[mandarina]

Hey Alex,

Are you still planning to take the advanced HSK?

I just applied today, will take it May...

[roddy]

Mandarina, drop in here if you get a chance - would be interesting to know where you're taking it, how many students there are, etc.

[Phil Wareham]

Hi, everyone. I just started prepping for the HSK 6. I think it will be  long road, so I'm trying to get my act together early on with planning and systematising how I study. Coming on here to talk to people will help me plan, I believe.

 

The big issue I have is that my level is weird. I did full time classes in 2001-02 for a good while, worked in Guangzhou in 2005, and have lived in Panyu (near Guangzhou) since 2011. The rest of the time I was back in Britain doing nothing Chinese. My listening is good, and my speaking is quite natural, but I've got a LOT of vocabulary to learn. [Group hug!] LOL

 

Phil

[LaoDing]

Sorry- wrong forum...

Edited September 15, 2016 at 11:44 AM by LaoDing

[Tiếng Hoa Bình Dương]

Thanks for that, very interesting reading.

[xuefang]

Hi! Does anyone have old HSK advanced mock test PDFs?