Filling the unknown gap until HSK 4 exam

[mungouk]

After 300 lessons my online teacher and I have just finished the HSK Standard Course 4下 textbook, with one chapter left in the HSK 4下 workbook.

 

If my earlier plans still stood then by now I would be based in Hangzhou, working through mock exams at a managed rate, and getting ready to sit the HSK 4 exam probably in June or July. 

 

But in reality I'm still in lockdown in the UK, with no clear idea of when I might even return to China, never mind when I'll be able to sit the exam. (I have a job in Hangzhou but I'm currently doing it remotely.)

 

Given that there are only a limited number of mock exams, I wonder if anyone is/was in a similar situation and what study resources you would recommend in order to maintain the momentum...?

 

I'll have a chat to my teacher of course, and I have a list of grammar points that I know I need to work on, as well as drilling the hell out of the vocabulary.

 

But if anyone else has ended up having a longer-than-expected gap between finishing the materials and sitting the actual exam I'd appreciate hearing how you managed it, and what resources you used.

Thanks!

 

[roddy]

It's such an obvious suggestion that I feel sure you must have considered and discarded it for perfectly valid reasons, but... once you get through a mock exam to your satisfaction, start studying HSK5? You may well end up skipping the HSK4 exam.

 

[JenniferW]

Almost all my past studies have been on my own, and I got myself up to HSK 4, taking the exams in the UK. Was that what you were planning to do? Have they cancelled this year's?

 

Can I ask about your online teaching? I've had a long break from Chinese and am thinking about this. Perfect for lockdown?

[mungouk]

Hi @JenniferW, 

My original plan was to take the HSK 4 exam in Hangzhou around June this year. That was based on starting a new job there in February, which has eventually evolved into working online — temporarily — from lockdown here in Wales.

 

If I knew that I would be here for another 6 months, then I would look at registering for the exam in Manchester, at the CI (my nearest exam centre), but they usually only run the exams every 3 months... according to the Hanban website they've only scheduled HSK 4 exams in September and December this year, so it does look like they cancelled the June ones.

 

As for online learning, I'll write up a summary of that in another thread... did you have anything specific I could usefully cover?

 

[JenniferW]

I've taken HSK exams in the past in the UK in London (at SOAS) and in Sheffield. Are those options?

 

I've had a gap of too many years of no-Chinese and want to start again. In the past I've been in classes, had private face-to-face tutoring, plus studied from coursebooks on my own. In UK lockdown, an online course seems a good next step for me but I've not yet even started to look into what's on offer.

[mungouk]

I just checked with Manchester CI and HSK exams are "postponed until further notice".  Expected to restart in November.

 

I expect it's the same everywhere in the UK, given that even GCSEs and A-levels are also cancelled.

 

[jannesan]

On 4/21/2020 at 4:36 PM, mungouk said:

Given that there are only a limited number of mock exams, I wonder if anyone is/was in a similar situation and what study resources you would recommend in order to maintain the momentum...?

 

Just read more graded readers/simple native materials, watch videos etc. I don't think you need to specifically keep doing mock exams or repeating HSK4 grammar points. Just move on to the next stage as if you already took the exam, I'm sure you'll pass the exam when you finally take it:)

[Singe]

On 4/22/2020 at 11:10 PM, mungouk said:

As for online learning, I'll write up a summary of that in another thread... did you have anything specific I could usefully cover?

 

Would be great if you would provide a link to any thread you post this in. It would be invaluable for me. Thanks in advance. 300 sessions (as you mentioned above) seems to me to have given you an excellent grounding. As well as having already lived in China, I reckon you must be well placed to be HSK-4?

[mungouk]

OK, so my teacher and I have agreed that we will do some grammar revision on the points I know I regularly get wrong, and then shift the focus to speaking and listening for a while.

 

We'll draw on some of the HSKK resources, but also spend a bit more time generally chatting in each lesson. Although I've been working for the last 2 (almost!) years on preparing for the HSK 4 exam, my main focus is on being to communicate effectively when / if I ever get back to China. 

 

Once I have a date for the HSK 4 exam I will start on the mock exams.  Meanwhile I still need to drill those extra 600 words of vocab... 

 

On 4/21/2020 at 4:03 PM, roddy said:

You may well end up skipping the HSK4 exam.

 

Actually, a few weeks ago I used one of those on-line calculators to work out how many "immigration points" I should get in my next visa application... if the calculator is correct I was one point short of the total required for a Category A work permit. And HSK 4 would give me that point. So, there may be an incentive there after all... ???

 

 

 

[mungouk]

OK @Singe, @JenniferW,

 

In case it's useful, I finally got round to sitting down for a couple of hours and writing my autobiography: Reflections on online learning.

 

 

[mungouk]

Just dropping by to report on how my teacher and I went with this.

 

We had a few lessons experimenting with different approaches (including starting on the HSK 5 textbook, which we both agreed was too soon), and eventually settled on this book for now:

新HSK汉语学习与考试教程 书写与口语 （四级）
New HSK Chinese Learning and Test Course: Writing and Speaking Level 4

 

 

It's interesting because although it says HSK 4, it's actually more of a bridging book for moving to HSK 5, or at least that's how my teacher described it and I think it's a fair appraisal. Plus it's not just focused on HSK as such; as it says in the title it has 口语 exercises as well, such as describing photographs orally like you do in the HSKK exams. 

 

At this point I've identified that I need to work more on consolidating grammar and practicing speaking/listening, and the exercises in here seem to fit quite well.

 

There are 10 chapters with two vocab sections in each chapter. Despite being supposedly level 4 the vocab doesn't entirely match up with this... 

 

According to Chinese Text Analyser the vocab look like this:

 

HSK 1-4: 83.84%  (82.23% of which are "HSK 4 words")

HSK 5:    11.31%  (63 words)

HSK 6:    0.36%    (2 words)

other:      4.49%    (25 words)

 

I make it 548 words in total — I've typed them all up — but CTA reckons there are 557.  (Hmmm... maybe segmentation of longer terms, @imron?)

 

I reckon this is pretty useful, because the HSK 4 exam will include bits of HSK 5 thrown in.  The grammar points also go beyond what I thought were HSK 4 grammar points as well.  

 

I also asked ages ago here about sources of vocab that are organised thematically, and this book does do that... sort of.  At least the chapters are thematic, so there is some sensible grouping of vocab. The exercises in each chapter are all based around the theme too.

 

Here's the table of contents:

1. 居家生活 
2. 旅游、交通 
3. 业余生活 
4. 身体与健康 
5. 饮食 
6. 购物 
7. 学习与工作 
8. 大自然 
9. 友谊与爱情 
10. 生活与环境
 

I think I remember seeing a very old post about this book on the forums, but can't find it just now. The version I have is dated 2015.

 

Edit: I stumbled across it again, and that post from 2012 that I was thinking of was actually about a couple of different books. Despite this, it's a very useful-looking post about preparing for HSK 5.

 

Edit: I meant to add that in this book all the grammar explanations are in Chinese, so I definitely need my teacher's help with this at the moment.  Then again, this has provided a reason to start learning the Chinese names for grammatical terms... 副词、形容词、量词、复句、等等...... and it feels like it's probably time I did this anyway.

 

At the very beginning, the book also has some brief guidance notes (both English and Chinese) on exam technique for the HSK 4 exam. 

 

 

 

 

[imron]

7 hours ago, mungouk said:

Hmmm... maybe segmentation of longer terms, @imron

CTA uses CC-CEDICT as a dictionary so words not in there won't be treated as a word in CTA unless explicitly marked as such.

[mungouk]

On 4/28/2020 at 4:33 PM, mungouk said:

I used one of those on-line calculators to work out how many "immigration points" I should get in my next visa application... if the calculator is correct I was one point short of the total required for a Category A work permit. And HSK 4 would give me that point. So, there may be an incentive there after all... 

 

 ? LEVEL UNLOCKED! ?

 

I just got my new work permit this morning, and thanks to passing HSK 4 (in June) I just managed to scrape enough points for a Category A work permit to be granted.

 

Feels like a win! 

 

Meanwhile my teacher and I are now working through the HSK 5 materials... We've just completed Chapter 6 in the HSK 5上 textbook, and next we're going to review the grammar and vocab and do Chapters 1-6 in the workbook.

 

Hopefully I should be back in China around the end of September (just in time to spend Golden Week in quarantine, ha!), and I'm really looking forward to being around Chinese spoken on a daily basis again.