Online mock HSK tests compared

[mungouk]

Hi @PHOU KIETHSENG and welcome to the forums!

I think it's a very relevant question, actually.

 

Most people here seem to say that they find the real tests a bit harder than the mock tests.  There's a very long thread where people have posted their experiences and comments: Taking the HSK? Already taken it? Report in here!

 

The online tests mentioned above all seem to have drawn their questions from the mock tests that are already published. 

[TaxiAsh]

On 7/4/2020 at 3:39 PM, PHOU KIETHSENG said:

know this is a bit irrelevant but I wanted to know how is mock test compare to the real examination in term of difficulty? I took mock test in chinesetest.cn one three times and I've done pretty well but I got no idea about the actual difficulty of real examination.

 

Good question!

 

I thought the mocks were easier than the actual test.

 

 

however, I didn't do the chinesetest.cn one, as I couldn't work out how to put money on my WeChat account, and it was about £2 I think to do it.

 

That version might have questions, that the new versions have, rather than old tests.

 

You can probably work something out, if you've done old tests... was the cn any harder than other mock tests? If not, it's probably just past papers.

 

 

[TaxiAsh]

1 minute ago, TaxiAsh said:

was the cn any harder than other mock tests? If not, it's probably just past papers.

also @PHOU KIETHSENG

 

this is a key point... I should have emphasized it more.

 

if the old mocks you try are same as the cn one, then you will need to work on some more things, as the tests have changed (apparently)

 

 

[TaxiAsh]

On 7/4/2020 at 7:00 PM, mungouk said:

think it's a very relevant question, actually.

 

Most people here seem to say that they find the real tests a bit harder than the mock tests.  There's a very long thread where people have posted their experiences and comments: Taking the HSK? Already taken it? Report in here!

 

The online tests mentioned above all seem to have drawn their questions from the mock tests that are already published. 

ah yes I didn't see this page.

 

sorry mungouk!

 

-

 

I think you did the cn paid test didn't you? Did you notice it harder than mock tests?

 

 

[7800]

So, I was hella bored 4 hours ago and took the 汉语考试服务网 paid test for fun  (HSK 4).

First of all, after paying 20.20 RMB (and not exactly 20RMB as the website says) I was forced to answer a questionnaire about what I'm able to do with my chinese skills before being allowed to take the test. It's long.
I took the test on Chrome, as advised by the website, and it was quite laggy. Also, the audio and the timer were slightly desynchronized, which means that the system would constantly send me back to the just-answered question A while the audio for question B was being played. Really annoying.
 

8 hours ago, TaxiAsh said:

Did you notice it harder than mock tests?

Last month, I did all of the mock tests available for download on chinestest.cn. I felt that the listening part was more difficult today, not only because of the Technical Difficulties I went through.

As soon as I get my results, I'll post them here so that we can all have a look at the test diagnostic report and get to know what that actually is.

[TaxiAsh]

5 hours ago, 7800 said:

Last month, I did all of the mock tests available for download on chinestest.cn. I felt that the listening part was more difficult today, not only because of the Technical Difficulties I went through.

As soon as I get my results, I'll post them here so that we can all have a look at the test diagnostic report and get to know what that actually is.

That'll be interesting thanks

 

cn site certainly isn't great at the best of times.

 

 

[mungouk]

That questionnaire is really annoying.  They should at least give you the option to say "I'll do it later" (or never).  

Fortunately you only have to do it once. But their data will surely be nonsense though, because so many people will give any old answer just to get rid of it.

 

 

[PHOU KIETHSENG]

Thanks you guy for your replies,

 

The mock test I've done on chinesetest.cn was somewhat easy. I was able to answer correctly with some mistakes. I would say it has the same difficulty as mock test paper H4001 - H41005. By the way I had this book named:  "汉语水平考试真题集四级2018版“. The book claimed that it's publication of real examination paper from HanBan themselves. Here is link of the test paper in the book: Test paper

 

This one is harder than the mock test I've done in chinesetest.cn.

 

What do you guy thinks? Which one is much closer to real examination?

[7800]

After a little bit more than 12 hours, my results have arrived. Let's have a look at the report:

Page 1 of 2 :

 

Here we can see some information that we also get in the real HSK score report, but a lot more visual. We've got tables, bars, and a bell curve that most likely doesn't accurately represent how people's scores are distrubuted. Looks pretty nice, but the gaussian doesn't make sense to me.

 

 

Then, we're presented with this chunk of information. It's interesting to see how the HSK vocabulary is divided, but I'm still trying to undestand how the graphs and tables work. You see, item number 9 on the left, 经济, has only gotten a single question in the whole test for itself, but the report says it amounts to 0% of the test score (maybe I got it wrong ?) and the graph says I got 80% of those questions right, which probably makes no sense (maybe that's one of the written questions and I got it almost right ?). I once again believe this is not the best way to present these data, because some items have 40 questions while others have only 1, which means some questions impact the graph area a lot more than others.


 On the end of page 1, we've got a short description of what I'm supposedly able to do with my Chinese skills (on the left), and I think it's actually somewhat accurate, at least a lot more accurate  than "can discuss a relatively wide range of topics in Chinese and is capable of communicating with Chinese speakers at a high standard". On the right, the report says I've got a firm grasp of astonishing 0% of the test's grammar despite my score of 275, and advises me to learn more. The only thing I can say about this is that I indeed did not use any of those patterns in the last 5 questions, which are the only ones where we've got to write stuff 100% by ourselves on HSK 4, and maybe that's also why I got only 24/40 on the last 5 questions.

At last, on page 2 we're shown 2 appendices:




Overall, I think the report is fine, but data could be presented in better ways. I believe this also contributes to that "HSK 4 Writing" post, where we've discussed how the questions are evaluated: try to use the new grammar points, they seem to matter a lot.
 

[mungouk]

If you look at the version of the report on the web site (rather than just the PDF) you can get more information to pop up by mousing over certain sections, like the radar plots.

 

I also couldn't really work out what the diagnostic information is supposed to be showing.  

 

btw well done for 100% on the 阅读 section!  That's impressive.

 

 

[TaxiAsh]

is that the mock exam not the real thing yet?

[7800]

4 hours ago, PHOU KIETHSENG said:

What do you guy thinks? Which one is much closer to real examination?

When I sat for the HSK 3 exam in june 2019, it was more difficult than the mock tests. The paid mock test I just did was also more difficult than the 5 mock tests you can download at chinesetest.cn.

 

2 hours ago, mungouk said:

well done for 100% on the 阅读 section! 

Thanks, @mungouk. Now I'll do my best to improve my speaking so that it doesn't fall too far behind. I haven't had many opportunities to talk with Chinese people this year, so there's this gap I need to get rid of.

 

@TaxiAsh, I'm not sure I understand your question, could you rephrase it for me?

[PHOU KIETHSENG]

Quote

Here is link of the test paper in the book: Test paper

 

The link is not working, here is the new one: Test Paper

I just wanted to know if this one is much closer to the actual examination paper.

 

Quote

On the right, the report says I've got a firm grasp of astonishing 0% of the test's grammar despite my score of 275

 

I also got a remarkable 0% as well. I guess I'm not the only one.

 

 

For this mock test I think I've done pretty well myself. I just need to improve the last 5 sentences of writing section.

 

 

 

Do you guys have any suggestion on how to improve writing part?

[7800]

2 hours ago, PHOU KIETHSENG said:

Do you guys have any suggestion on how to improve writing part?

I think I lost those 16 points simply because I dind't force myself to use more complex sentece patterns, and that seems to be your case as well. I believe you can score 100/100 just by using different grammar points for each sentence. Next time, follow the report's advice and try to throw some 对 着 既 又/也 比 不仅 into your sentences.

[TaxiAsh]

14 hours ago, 7800 said:

@TaxiAsh, I'm not sure I understand your question, could you rephrase it for me?

 

It doesn't matter 7800. I wasn't sure if this was the real exam or the mock, but I can see now.

[TaxiAsh]

15 hours ago, 7800 said:

I haven't had many opportunities to talk with Chinese people this year, so there's this gap I need to get rid of.

Have you tried any talking apps?

 

I use HelloTalk and although you have to talk to a few people to find someone who is good to talk with, it's an instant source of talking to native people.

[TaxiAsh]

15 hours ago, 7800 said:

I haven't had many opportunities to talk with Chinese people this year, so there's this gap I need to get rid of.

in fact there is a long thread about it here.

 

https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/47616-hellotalk-language-exchange-app/#comment-360953

 

I've only read first page, but pretty much sums it up.

 

You'll get a lot of people just using it like Twitter/facebook, and lots of messages from people... but out of perhaps 40 or 50 people, I now regularly talk to a handful. It's possible to find really good people to learn with in that, I found.

[mungouk]

@PHOU KIETHSENG was asking about how difficult the real exams are compared to the mock tests...

I'm not sure how accurately we can answer that, given that it it's very subjective, and it depends on:

• one's own perceptions and expectations
• doing an exam having a certain amount of randomness that goes with it... what kind of mood are you in on the day of the exam, how well did you sleep the night before, etc.
• some "luck" regarding whether the questions cover material that you know well, or not so well.  

 

I don't know how useful it is, but here are the details that I kept of all the practice tests I did. 

 

 

Some of these are full tests where you don't get given a grade for the writing section, and some were the downloaded paper tests where I only did listening or reading because I needed to practice those more — especially reading 阅读. 

 

I particularly needed to focus on the timing aspect for the reading, because I just wasn't reading/doing the questions fast enough (40 questions in 40 minutes). Hence that other thread on Tactics for HSK 4 Reading Section. 

 

I was honestly expecting to just scrape a pass, especially since in the paid-for mock exams on chinesetest.cn I was getting 61-63%.

 

Can I tell from these numbers whether the real test was harder than the mocks?  Not really. 

 

Can I see that I improved during the 3 weeks of preparation?  Yes.  

 

Did I feel that I had improved during those 3 weeks?  Yes, and keeping a track of my scores re-inforced that, and built up my confidence a bit.

[PHOU KIETHSENG]

Hey guys,

 

I want to ask those who has taken the exam this June 28th. Which of this two is more closer to real examination?

 

1: Taken from 汉语水平考试真题集2018版 (HanBan)：Link  (Listening Audio: Link)

2: Taken from 汉语水平考试模拟肢体集第2版 (BLCUP)：Link (Listening Audio: Link)

 

[PHOU KIETHSENG]

@mungouk Thanks for sharing your way on how to keep track of your own progress.

 

I am worried mainly because I did mock exam from 

Quote

2: Taken from 汉语水平考试模拟肢体集第2版 (BLCUP)：Link (Listening Audio: Link) 

And it was so harder than any mock test I've done before. And that really threw me off since the  汉语水平考试真题集2018版 (Claimed to be official examination paper from HanBan themselves) is more acceptable in term of difficulty.