HSK 2.0 / 3.0

[Explore Chinese]

Hi all,

 

Firstly, apologies for the vague question, but what stage of HSK are we currently in?

 

The whole transition seems to be confusing and poorly communicated. I'm looking to plan in my HSK 5 exam in the next few months but really not sure if / what has or might change.

I read somewhere that HSK 1-6 would be unaffected in that it would be more evenly distributed, to make HSK 1-3 heavier and 4-6 lighter in terms of new vocabulary. I've also seen sources say there is a load new vocabulary being introduced. 

Any comments on the current situation would be great.

[Jan Finster]

https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/59991-hsk-30-new-new-hsk/page/17/

 

 

[becky82]

Officially HSK 3.0 was launched years ago, but for HSK1-6 nothing has changed yet.  (HSK7-9 has launched, however.)

 

I recall reading in a paper that one or more of the main organizers got seriously ill from Covid, and now we have this whole mess.  I've been keeping this Stack Exchange post up to date as I've heard announcements over the last few years.  As I summarize in the Stack Exchange post, there was a livestream in August, where they discussed when the HSK1-6 changes will be implemented, and they said this year or next year; many other changes to the testing format were being discussed.

 

To my knowledge, the HSK1-6 exams are all still using the HSK2.0 vocabulary, despite it being officially called HSK 3.0.  Note that HSK5 (like HSK6) has 超纲词 (extra-curricular vocabulary), so you need to know many more characters/words than what's on the vocabulary list anyway.

 

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I read somewhere that HSK 1-6 would be unaffected in that it would be more evenly distributed, to make HSK 1-3 heavier and 4-6 lighter in terms of new vocabulary. I've also seen sources say there is a load new vocabulary being introduced. 

 

This is precisely explained in the standards (thanks to Mega Mandarin for removing the watermark).  The key is that there are 300 new characters at each level for the HSK1-6.  In that sense, yes, it's much more evenly distributed (or, at least, it will be one day, maybe depending on 超纲词).  While it's not the HSK2.0's "inverted exponential pyramid", where the number of words doubles at each level, the vocabulary still grows at an increasing rate.

 

There's been quite a bit of discussion about the HSK3.0 vocabulary.  But the thing that really stands out to me is that, according to the new HSK3.0 standards: (a) the number of characters for the HSK6 has dropped massively (down to 1800 from 2663), and (b) there are virtually no chengyu in the HSK3.0 HSK1-6.  So while the HSK3.0 standards has lots of words, if you look beyond raw numbers, you'll find words like 北边 南边 西边 东边 etc., i.e., you learn more words per character.

[roddy]

On 11/27/2023 at 11:07 PM, becky82 said:

Note that HSK5 (like HSK6) has 超纲词 (extra-curricular vocabulary), so you need to know many more characters/words than what's on the vocabulary list anyway.

I'm absolutely not up to date, but have they said that you need to *know* some set of undefined extra words, or that you'll be expected to be able to cope with unknown words in the text, but still get the answers right?

[becky82]

Fair point; my experience is that the 超纲词 are substantially more gentle on the HSK5 than the HSK6.

 

From here (2014) we have:

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HSK（五级）共100题，要尽可能多地使用规定的2500词，尤其是新增的1300词，全卷超纲词控制在15%左右；HSK（六级）共101题，试题语料在词汇的使用上，不受规定的5000词的限制，但考点和词语题选项中的词语应该在这5000词范围内。

which Google Translate translates to:

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There are a total of 100 questions in HSK (Level 5), and the prescribed 2500 words should be used as much as possible, especially the new 1300 words. The super-class words in the whole paper should be controlled at about 15%; HSK (Level 6) has a total of 101 questions, and the test corpus The use of vocabulary is not limited to the prescribed 5,000 words, but the words in the test points and word question options should be within the range of 5,000 words.

(Where "extra-curricular words" is translated to "super-class words".)

 

I'm not aware of other announcements in this regard.  It's an old announcement and not very true for the HSK6 at least.  But still, this is likely where the claim that the 超纲词 don't inhibit you from finding the correct answers originally comes from.

 

For the HSK6 (which I've failed twice now, and I'm currently preparing for a third time), it seems like anything can appear anywhere.  I skimmed a couple of past exams just now, and quickly found things like 这并非危言耸听 (H61333 Q.76-80) where 危言耸听 is not a HSK6 chengyu and 耸 is not a HSK 2.0 character, and 颜色绚丽 as one of the answers (H61332 Q.93), where 绚 is not a HSK 2.0/3.0 character.  This is putting aside things like names (I recall 琼 and 庚 appearing in names in the writing section on official mock exams), and classical Chinese and metaphors.  The actual HSK6 exams nowadays are much harder than these past exams, and I find I often need to actually understand what the text means---they often don't use the same vocabulary in the text and in the question.  (I certainly feel this is not true: "the words in the test points and word question options should be within the range of 5,000 words".)

 

I've seen quite a few posts on Reddit like this and this, where people report what it's like taking the HSK6:

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But you only need to know 5,000 words!

 

Hate to break it to you, but this just isn't true. Other HSK6 takers here have confirmed this.

 

My Anki deck was at around ~8,000 cards at the time I wrote the exam. Each card in the deck represents a sentence containing a new word that I have "mined" during my immersion. This does not include simple/easy-to-remember words like 房子，食物，狗, etc, and I still came across quite a few new words when I looked at past papers, as well as in the actual exam.

 

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Another note: the 5000 word list is kind of a joke. while i think its a good orientation, i would say the vocabulary in the test is easily 7000 words, if not more.

 

As for the HSK5, it's been a while now since I took the HSK5 (and when I took it, I had studied more than half of the HSK6 vocabulary, and many words outside the HSK).  I definitely recall that the 5 words given to you in the HSK5 writing section were strictly from the HSK5 vocabulary (I don't remember encountering a counterexample here).  So maybe the organizers indeed strictly restrict the 超纲词 for the HSK5 so that they don't interfere with you answering questions.

[Susi12]

This is exactly the post I've been looking for - just that I have this same question regarding the low-entry-level HSK.

 

I just started learning chinese and am totally confused as to which HSK test level should sign up for. Everybody here keeps telling me the test for HSK 1-3 have stayed exactly the same, my teacher forwarded me a list with 300 words for HSK 2 and 600 for HSK 3. The 300 words for HSK 2 I know, so that would be just my level. BUT the official vocab list for HSK 2 on the website now has 700+ words - not just 300 and I don't know many of those!

 

I just took the test on hsklevel.com and while I find the amount of words I konw the test predicts quite accurate (corresponds with my ANKI-Decks), it doesn't help with the decision. It says:

 

I know 900 words in Chinese

HSK level 2/6
??⬛⬛⬛⬛

New HSK level 1/9
?⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛

Take the test on www.hsklevel.com

 

Now which HSK test should I sign up for? HSK 2 or 1? Thanks!