Textbooks for Old HSK?

[RogerGe]

I am looking for textbooks for the old HSK, preferably for the Intermediate or Advanced levels. Thank you for your help.

[LinZhenPu]

Why?

[jobm]

I am actually also looking for this one since the old HSK has more levels and I think the intermediate and advanced levels are harder than the new HSK 6 and more accurately assess your Chinese skills.

[imron]

Yep, the old HSK went up to 11.

 

I think I might still have a bunch of these books, but they're currently in storage and it's unlikely I'll be able to check until closer to the end of the year.  If you're still interested, ping me in November as a reminder.

[roddy]

Seems you might still be able to get them from BLCU press (they've probably got a warehouse full of them in case they ever manage to wrestle the HSK monopoly back from Hanban). Eg, this shows as in stock. Look for stuff marked as 初中 / 8级 (8 was the highest mark on the old 初中 test) and 高级, and with older publication dates. 

 

Studychineseculture.com also has some

[RogerGe]

Hi. Thank you for your replies. I want to learn the old HSK vocabulary because the new HSK has 4000 less words. I did a bit of looking around and I found the Boya series, are there any other books that introduce vocabulary in a bunch of lessons for the Old HSK Advanced test, as opposed to books that test individual aspects like grammar, listening, writing, etc, because these seemed to be the only kind of books when I searched for the old HSK textbooks.

[jobm]

Actually, the Boya series already has a second edition!  I guess, the Advanced Level 3 is the one left not updated, but for the lower levels, they already have new editions.  

 

For skill-specific books, maybe you could check the books used by PKU? I think the books they use for their speaking classes are still based on the old HSK and can be used together with Boya.

 

 

[RogerGe]

I actually downloaded the Boya Advanced books, and I found that they only cover ~2700 words, even though it is advertised as covering 5000. Am I missing something? I'm not looking for skill-specific books, rather books that teach you the vocabulary. I really can't find any textbooks other than Boya. Surely there were other textbooks that conformed to the old HSK levels?

[werewitt]

https://www.purpleculture.net/ has what looks like all language books published in China in the past 15 years. Anything about HSK published before 2010 is "old" HSK. Maybe check what was recommended on this forum back then.

[imron]

People have already recommended such books in this thread and linked to a store that sells them.  

[RogerGe]

Actually, the ones Roddy linked are not for teaching vocabulary, they are only for specific aspects like reading, writing, listening, grammar... werewitt are there any links you can provide? Or should I just go to "Resources for Studying Chinese" and click back a bunch of pages.

This is from a different thread:

Quote

I'm not sure what's currently available - I'd imagine a lot of textbook publishers are matching material to HSK levels and stopping at 6. But if you recall the old-style HSK of a decade ago - that went beyond the HSK6 level, and there were useful textbooks for that.

So really what I'm looking for is actual textbooks that are marketing themselves as in accordance with the HSK高级 and teaching the vocabulary lesson by lesson, and these books probably won't have "HSK 高级" in their titles. 

[Lumbering Ox]

37 minutes ago, RogerGe said:

I actually downloaded the Boya Advanced books, and I found that they only cover ~2700 words, even though it is advertised as covering 5000. Am I missing something? I'm not looking for skill-specific books, rather books that teach you the vocabulary. I really can't find any textbooks other than Boya. Surely there were other textbooks that conformed to the old HSK levels?

This is what the amazon write up says

 

The elementary level is in two volumes of 50 lessons for beginners and covers about 1,000 words. Finishing it will ensure the students to reach level 3 of HSK. The pre-intermediate level comprises two volumes. It suits students with 1,000-3000 vocabulary. It focuses on trainings of depiction, narration, explanation and discussion. Finishing this level, the students will pass HSK test of level 5-6. The intermediate level has two volumes and is suitable for students who have 3,000-5,000 words. The contents are vivid and include a wide selection of topics. The vocabulary has very detailed notes with carefully selected examples. This level is compatible with HSK level 7-8. The advanced level is for students who master more than 5,000 words. The advanced level has three volumes and contains about 8,000-word vocabulary and focuses on identifying synonyms, explaining common sentence patterns and difficult words. There are ample exercises and interesting readings after each lesson. Finishing this level enables the students to pass HSK level 11 tests.

 

Considering the pre int and int level volumes cover 1000 words each I suspect that when they say the advanced has an 8K vocab they mean the 3000 [or 2700] plus the 5K from previous levels. IIRC the old HSK had about 8K words

[RogerGe]

Yes, I saw that as well. But in reality, the old HSK had 8800, so it 5000+2700=7700 doesn't really count, and plus looking through the vocabulary from a pdf online, I found that a lot of them are not even in the old HSK. What's more, the preface of the book says that it covers 10000, with 5000 in the 3 advanced parts, as shown in the image attached.

[werewitt]

26 minutes ago, RogerGe said:

werewitt are there any links you can provide?

TBH I was never interested in BLCU HSK, so the only book that comes to mind is the first edition of Boya. From the old copies I've got it looks like Boya 高 covers just under 2000 additional words (e.g. the first volume is 10 lessons of 70-80 words each).

[imron]

If all you wanted was the word lists you should have asked for that instead of textbooks. 

 

Here you go. 

 

P.S to search for old HSK content on the web, use 高等 and not 高级

[RogerGe]

I think you are misunderstanding what I mean. I don't want the word lists, nor do I want books that target the grammar or listening sections of the old HSK, I just want books that introduce the vocabulary in lessons, while having exercises to learn the new words. Anyway, I've found this: https://www.amazon.com/Brushing-Up-Your-Vocabulary-HSK/dp/7561912978/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1495975891&sr=8-3&keywords=Brushing+Up+Your+Vocabulary+for+HSK which is exactly what I wanted.

[imron]

I have those books. 

 

What I didn't like about them is that they go through the vocabulary in alphabetical order, which made them very tedious to learn from. 

[Lumbering Ox]

12 hours ago, RogerGe said:

Yes, I saw that as well. But in reality, the old HSK had 8800, so it 5000+2700=7700 doesn't really count, and plus looking through the vocabulary from a pdf online, I found that a lot of them are not even in the old HSK. What's more, the preface of the book says that it covers 10000, with 5000 in the 3 advanced parts, as shown in the image attached.

 

 

Jeez next thing you will be telling me is that my father's Rolex watch he bought in China for next to nothing isn't the real deal ;)

 

I find it odd that the amazon write up for the book is in line roughly with your findings but not the back of the actual book.

 

Very weird indeed. Jeez I was thinking of using them if I can get my ass in gear, at least for the vocab but I think I may want to just download them if I could out of principle being so deceptive.

[RogerGe]

@imron Well are there any other books like that? I really couldn't find any.

[imron]

I think what you are looking for - a text book series that covers all the words from the old HSK and that introduces them in a meaningful order - does not exist. 

 

Most at textbooks published before 2008 will be based on those lists in some way (but nowhere near complete). People would then use various HSK specific books to make up the gap.