Another online "at home" HSK test: February, March, April, June

[mungouk]

Just announced, next test date will be 27 February.  HSK 3-6 plus this time also HSKK, all 3 levels.

 

http://www.chinesetest.cn/gonewcontent.do?id=44918141

 

This time it specifically says you can't register to take the test in one country but take it while in another country.

 

Each test is limited to 1500 people.

 

[mungouk]

Update 5 Feb:

 

English announcement, adding 3 more overseas dates.  (So possibly the 27 February test is in China only...?)

 

http://www.chinesetest.cn/gonewcontent.do?id=44929423

 

Quote

In light of the epidemic overseas, it has been decided to set up online test at home for foreign countries on March 13, April 24, and June 5 respectively to meet the test demands overseas. 

 

[alantin]

Thanks for the info!

 

I just sent an email to my local institution administering the test.

The dates on their website differed from that and they just said that they'll know more in February.

 

I took the HSK4 overseas test at home in last June and would love to take HSK5 in March.

[mungouk]

1 hour ago, alantin said:

I took the HSK4 overseas test at home in last June and would love to take HSK5 in March.

 

You're moving quickly!  Impressive.

I also took HSK 4 last June, but it's going to be some time before I'm ready for level 5! 

 

So much vocab to learn, and work has been busy busy busy...

 

[oksmith]

I've just signed up for the HSK4 test on 13th March with Nottingham. I was originally planning to take HSK4 in mid-2020, but didn't realise home tests were a thing so missed the opportunity to do it last year?‍♂️

Does anybody have experience with the home tests they would be willing to share? I'm not really sure what to expect from a technical point of view, I've only done the paper tests in the past. Is the keyboard input system the same pinyin one as on normal keyboards? If not, is there any easy way to get practice before the exam?

Thanks!

[alantin]

1 hour ago, mungouk said:

You're moving quickly!  Impressive.

 

I'm not sure about that. I don't really know how other people do in them so it is hard to compare.

 

The tests are a way for me to keep track of my progress. I've been taking a practice test every couple of months at https://allmusing.net/hsktest/hsk-online-practice-tests/ for over a year now and it is nice to take the official test too when I have a chance. I'm not really trying to get a good score. Just want to see if I pass. HSK4 was the first one I took.

 

I think I should be able to pass HSK5 now. I just did the practice test and got 听力: 35/45, 阅读: 19/45, 书写: 7/10. But I bungled the reading part by going it in order from top to bottom and ran out of time. A good reminder to do the ones with lots of questions for one piece of text first. In the beginning of December I was able to answer 39 out of 45 questions and got 听力: 35/45, 阅读: 27/45, 书写: 6/10. Need to get reading speed up!

 

I also took a shot at HSK6 听力 for the first time and got 31/50. The jump from HSK5 to HSK6 was was pretty steep..

 

1 hour ago, mungouk said:

So much vocab to learn, and work has been busy busy busy...

 

I feel you! Luckily I just got my Master's Degree out in the end of December and I don't need to work and study at the same time any more! Finishing a thesis pretty much killed all inspiration to do anything extra for some time..

Other than that the only Chinese study I have done for the last half a year has been taking iTalki free talk lessons once or twice a week and been trying to add as much Chinese entertainment into my days as possible. Two months of laboring through a book has been great for vocabulary! But evidently not for reading speed. At least yet..

[Mantou]

3 hours ago, alantin said:

The tests are a way for me to keep track of my progress. I've been taking a practice test every couple of months at https://allmusing.net/hsktest/hsk-online-practice-tests/ for over a year now and it is nice to take the official test too when I have a chance. I'm not really trying to get a good score. Just want to see if I pass. HSK4 was the first one I took.

 

I think I should be able to pass HSK5 now. I just did the practice test and got 听力: 35/45, 阅读: 19/45, 书写: 7/10. But I bungled the reading part by going it in order from top to bottom and ran out of time. A good reminder to do the ones with lots of questions for one piece of text first. In the beginning of December I was able to answer 39 out of 45 questions and got 听力: 35/45, 阅读: 27/45, 书写: 6/10. Need to get reading speed up!

Where on the website did you find the HSK5 practice tests? I can only find HSK1-3?


Are the certificates for the "at home" test and the in person test any different?

[alantin]

22 hours ago, Mantou said:

Where on the website did you find the HSK5 practice tests? I can only find HSK1-3?

 

Originally I used the pdf tests with recordings, that I found from Hanban website, and scored them myself.

But then I found online versions here:https://mandarinbean.com/hsk-chinese-test-online/

They have a couple of tests for each level.

 

22 hours ago, Mantou said:

Are the certificates for the "at home" test and the in person test any different?

 

I only have the one certificate that appeared in the chinesetest website, so I do don't know if they are different for the written test.

I assume the home test is the same as the online test normally administered. But I only have experience doing the online test at home. Normally they only offer the written test here.

[mungouk]

On 2/7/2021 at 1:47 AM, Mantou said:

Are the certificates for the "at home" test and the in person test any different?

 

They're exactly the same.

To order a certificate for the test you need to login to chinesetest.cn and go to "Additional Score Reports" underneath "> Score Information".

 

You need to pay to get it shipped to you from China, whereas in normal circumstances they would send it to your test centre.

 

 

 

[mungouk]

On 2/6/2021 at 8:26 PM, oksmith said:

Does anybody have experience with the home tests they would be willing to share? 

 

I did HSK 4 last June while still in the UK (registered with Nottingham Uni as well) and there's a rather rambling/chatty thread about that here, including links to various online mock tests:

https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/59940-hsk-online-test-at-home-edition-居家网考-may-june-2020-covid-special/

 

There's also a very short report-back on the experience here: 

 

https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/20933-taking-the-hsk-already-taken-it-report-in-here/page/26/?tab=comments#comment-469746

 

As for mock tests, there are some available on the chinesetest.cn website itself, although you have to pay. The plus side is that someone actually marks the non-MCT questions, like writing.

 

The HSK Standard Course workbooks have good exercises in them as well (including listening), like mini versions of the test. 
 

I've just tried running the test client software, and I see it's now been updated to remove the "Hanban" branding.

I just tested it and at the moment you can try out a mock exam in there, to see how the system works.  I think you can just enter any details for name, email etc. to use the mock test, but when you do the actual test the interface is slightly different and you have to enter an individual PIN code that the test invigilator gives you.

[Mantou]

7 hours ago, mungouk said:

They're exactly the same.

To order a certificate for the test you need to login to chinesetest.cn and go to "Additional Score Reports" underneath "> Score Information".

 

You need to pay to get it shipped to you from China, whereas in normal circumstances they would send it to your test centre.

Eventhough this online version seems "easier" given the pinyin input, right? Maybe I should do an online HSK while it's still available.

I was planning to do HSK5 once I am ready. I don't think I'll be ready for HSK5 for the upcoming date though. I don't see the benefit of doing HSK4 if I'm going to do HSK5 later anyways. Maybe the test experience helps?

[alantin]

4 hours ago, Mantou said:

Eventhough this online version seems "easier" given the pinyin input, right? Maybe I should do an online HSK while it's still available.

 

Pinyin input is convenient to me personally not having to wake up at 6am and drive two hours to the test center is far greater value.

I'm not great at writing characters (more specifically remembering them) but I have enough practice with them that I can write any character can see so the first part of the writing part is no problem. You just copy the words in the correct order. The second part, where you need produce text yourself, is trickier. I don't know if you still have the pages from the reading part still with you at that point. If you do, I expect you can just find the characters you don't remember how to write on the previous pages.

There certainly is enough time for that in the written part. First you push through the reading part in a slight panic against the clock, and then you have 45 minutes to copy a few lousy sentences...

[mungouk]

14 hours ago, Mantou said:

Even though this online version seems "easier" given the pinyin input, right?

 

The pinyin input is a bit of a joke for HSK 3 where they give you the pinyin for one character missing from a sentence and you have to "write" the hanzi.

 

The only difficulty here is making sure you don't inadvertently choose a similar but incorrect character that has the same pinyin. Since the software uses a custom IME, you can't rely on the right answer appearing automatically due to frequency or collocation like happens with other IMEs.

 

For HSK 4 you just have to write a short sentence using the given hanzi and a picture; answers given in mock tests are usually around 10 characters maximum.

 

HSK 5 is writing two 80-character compositions, one based on a prompt giving you 5-6 words to include, and another showing just a picture. Writing using this hobbled IME is certainly going to slow me down a lot on this bit, so being able to practice on the actual exam client will be something I'm going to focus on when I get nearer to doing the exam. (If I get there before it gets phased out!)

 

14 hours ago, Mantou said:

I don't see the benefit of doing HSK4 if I'm going to do HSK5 later anyways. Maybe the test experience helps?

 

Test experience definitely helps, although if you're doing the online "at home" test and you practice using their online mock tests then the experience is going to be almost identical. A big difference with the sitting-in-a-classroom experience. 

 

I would also say that exam technique counts for a lot, which is where practicing is important. Especially in the reading section, if you're actually reading everything "properly" it's going to slow you down too much to be able to answer all the questions in time. Using scanning or skimming appropriately, and reading answers first (or not, depending on the question type) makes a difference. 

 

Many people choose to sit two different levels on the same day, and the test times are staggered which allows that.  Usually 1, 3, 5 at a certain time and 2, 4, 6 later.  So if you wouldn't find it too stressful you could do levels 4 and 5 on the same day; that way if it turns out you weren't ready for level 5 after all, hopefully you can take a pass in level 4 as a consolation prize.  

[mungouk]

9 hours ago, alantin said:

I don't know if you still have the pages from the reading part still with you at that point.

 

No you don't — for the computer-based tests that I've used you can't see other sections once you've finished them.  

[alantin]

@mungouk I meant the paper test. Do they collect the reading part pages away when time runs out?

[mungouk]

I've only ever taken one paper test years ago (HSK 2 — no writing), but IIRC the question paper is all one unit, like the PDFs you download. 

 

Whether this is different for HSK 4+ because of the writing section I don't know.

[SunnySideUp]

When I took the HSK 4 paper-based test, it was one document only. Nothing was taken away. One guy actually missed the cue for when we should have moved on to the next section and then had all of 5 mins left to finish off the writing section - so you could definitely spend more time on the reading section if that's what you're asking.

[alantin]

1 hour ago, SunnySideUp said:

so you could definitely spend more time on the reading section if that's what you're asking.

 

That is awesome news!

[mungouk]

2 hours ago, SunnySideUp said:

you could definitely spend more time on the reading section if that's what you're asking

 

And you also could refer back to the hanzi in the previous sections if you can't remember some vocab or how to write certain characters (which is what I thought @alantin was hinting at).

[alantin]

19 hours ago, alantin said:

If you do, I expect you can just find the characters you don't remember how to write on the previous pages

 

@mungouk haha, I at least tried to do more than hint, but yes, that my original concern. But being able to move time from the writing section to the reading part is valuable too!