Anyone Taken the HSK Advanced

Congrats magnusgren and yueni!

The reading part certainly required speed though...

I was thinking, half-jokingly, of attempting to change the name of the "reading" section to "Where's Waldo?", because to some degree, that's what it feels like. On a good 30-40% of the questions, I would guess, there is basically no thinking involved, it's simply a matter of reading the question and finding the answer in the shortest amount of time possible. It's really a bit odd.

I just say that because, although I knew one had to be fast, the first time took the trst, the speed required really blew me away and caused me to miss many questons.

Well, it ain't called the Thinking Section

Congrats also . . .

Well, I finally got my scores today, and it is pretty much what I had thought. (The testing center in Beijing garbled my photo, so I had to wait an extra two weeks for the results.) Unfortunately, I missed getting a B (which was my target). Here’s the breakdown, compared to my past years scores (for comparison): (spring 2006, fall 2006, spring 2007, May 2009) :

聽力：56, 47, 62, 70

閱讀：40, 54, 57, 62

綜合：58, 42, 42, 56

作文：52, 65, 65, 65

口語：63, 75, 81, 81

Overall: Fail 269, C 283, C 307， 334

Previously, I wrote:

Overall, because I bombed the 綜合 I’d bet my money that I’d get a 9 (with an outside possibility of not passing at all, although if that were the case, I’d bet my total score would still be well into the 300’s). There’s a slight chance I could get a 10, and that path would almost certainly be: if I get a B on listening, reading, a C on綜合 , a C on writing, and a B or above on speaking.

So, as you can see, I basically did as I thought I would, except that I missed getting a B on the reading (by four points). I had thought that I did fairly well on the reading, but I guess I didn’t, or perhaps other people did better than me. Still, I think my score shows that the test, on average, tends to be somewhat consistent.

In any case, I think I’ll work more on my writing by hand, with the goal of improving my 作文 to a B, while simultaneously trying to improve my 综合.

Congrats, wushijiao! Looks like your scores are moving in the right direction, at least. magnusgren got 76 on 综合. Maybe he can share some tips with everyone.

Four times! Man, you're a sucker for punishment. Well done though. Inspirational and all that. . .

moving in the right direction

Yes, that's good to see. I think I just need to boost my writing by hand. Next step is a 10. Then an 11. Then Xinhua editor!

Four times! Man, you're a sucker for punishment

Yes, fourth time....although I did take a two year break between tests. In any case, although preparing for the test can be a bit nerve racking, I find actually taking the test (especially doing the writing and speaking sections) is, dare I say it, somewhat fun!

Roddy, do you plan on taking it again?

just came across this thread...thought i'd put up my scores too.

listening: 77 B

reading: 54 C (disaster!)

综合: 71 B

writing: 77 B

speaking: 77 B

total: 356 B．

ｆｉｒｓｔ　ｔｉｍｅ．．．ｈａｐｐｙ　ｅｎｏｕｇｈ．：）

btw---has anyone heard of the word＂ｄｕｒｆ＂ｉｎ　ｅｎｇｌｉｓｈ？

Good going, Clive! Are you still doing a BA at BNU? How is that going? Maybe you can do a review?

Roddy, do you plan on taking it again?

I've toyed with the idea, and got as far as looking up the dates after seeing you take it again. But basically I'd need to learn to write again and my enthusiasm for that is pretty much zero. I've kind of semi-consciously taken 2009 off as a 'resting on my laurels' year as far as Chinese goes - don't think I've done anything deliberately aimed at improving my language skills.

I may yet sign up for the October sitting, but I can't see me putting much effort in. It's one of those 'should do, really don't want to do' things.

I've kind of semi-consciously taken 2009 off as a 'resting on my laurels' year as far as Chinese goes - don't think I've done anything deliberately aimed at improving my language skills

That's more or less how I spent the first year and a half in HK. I certainly kept listening to podcasts, reading some books in Chinese, and some random newspapers and magazines, but not many activities designed to kick up my level a notch. And, overall, I kind of stopped my obsession with learning Chinese.

As far as learning to write by hand, I'm going to try to get serious about that soon.

But, congrats to Clive- for great score (especially for a first try! That might be a record!)

Is anyone taking the HSK Advanced exam in Sydney this weekend? I'm hoping for a score of 400 or more so I can get the top grade. I've taken some practice exams, and I usually lose around 3-7 marks for each component (excluding writing and speaking), with my best being listening. I don't really know how to prepare for writing and speaking though. I suppose they're not skills you can develop overnight, but reading some sample answers for these two sections made me really nervous, since I don't think I can write or speak Chinese to that standard with such complicated phrases and expressions, especially 成语 within that short a period of time.

Wish me luck!

I only found this site a couple of days ago. I'm doing the HSK Advanced in Beijing this weekend (ie: tomorrow). I'm aiming for a B, and feeling pretty good about all of the sections except listening, which there is a pretty decent chance I will fail -_-

Doraemon, the speaking section is not that hard, the most important thing is just to make sure that you answer the question fully, and that your answer is clear and logical. I wouldn't worry too much about trying to use 成语 or anything really fancy, it's probably best to stick with language you are comfortable with so you sound more fluent.

As for the writing, make sure that you know how to write a formal letter (formatting etc) in case that comes up, and otherwise just do the best you can. I think some of the model answers you see in textbooks are actually written by native speakers, and probably not within 30 minutes either, so don't be too worried about holding yourself to that standard...

I took the advanced exam in Sydney today. Overall it was alright, but I almost didn't finish the reading section. The examiner said there were only 5 minutes left when I still had 10 questions to go. I had to guess the last few. Fingers crossed.

Do people around the world sit for the same HSK exam? Did anyone's writing question happen to be something like "介绍你最难忘的一次旅行"? At the end the examiner was like "写作考试到此结束". I got a huge fright because there was still a few minutes to go and I haven't written my conclusion yet. Then she said "如果你还没有写完的话你还有三四分钟的时间". Why couldn't she just have told us to stop when the time was actually up?

I don't think I did too well in speaking. The 朗读 bit was pretty good, but I don't think there was enough expression in my voice and I read it a bit too quickly. Also, I feel I didn't spend enough time answering the two questions. The recommended time is 10 minutes, with 3 spent on each question, whereas I finished in something like 5-6 minutes. I wasn't very fluent either and kept on having to think what to say next. However, the examiner said I did quite well and told me not to worry since the amount of time you spend on each question won't impact on your marks, but I'm still worried. But does anyone actually know how harshly you would get marked for speaking, and what it takes to get a A-range mark? I just don't want to get a B or C range mark for speaking which would cost me a grade 11.

I think the exam is different in each location, the writing question I got was completely different from the one you mentioned.

Overall I'm reasonably confident that I passed, but not by much. The listening section was easier than I expected (ie: actually possible), but I ran out of time on reading, and I feel that I could have done better on the speaking section too. If I had to take a guess at my expected marks, I would say:

听力：55

阅读：55

综合：70

写作：70

口语：75

Good enough for a C, but not for a B...

As well as it was fairly organized and you had a conclusion, then you should be fine for the speaking part. It's better to have finished it early than not finish it and get cut off by the clock for sure! (also some testing centers are different...some just shut off the recorder automatically:-?)

As for writing, the same applies,you just don't want to have any 错别字。 These are things that give away points in the last two sections.

Do report back your grade if you will. No pressure or anything but somebody here needs to get an 11!

Ah, I see. So the questions are different. Then wouldn't some writing questions be harder than others and would therefore lead to a disparity in the marks of people from different countries?

Also, my exam centre didn't have a tape recorder. The examiner gave you a headphone and your voice was transmitted onto the laptop he was looking at.

Does anyone know whether the HSK mark you receive is a percentage or the type of scoring system which shows how you performed compared to everybody else?

The latter.

Does anyone know whether the HSK mark you receive is a percentage or the type of scoring system which shows how you performed compared to everybody else?

This question always comes up. See the discussion below. The HSK examiners unfortunately don't make an effort to try to explain what the scores mean. So some of us have tried to figure it out using the HSK statistical data.

http://www.chinese-forums.com/showthread.php?p=189384#post189384

To get a 9, you'd need at least a 54-58 (scaled) score in each category. This is equivalent to the 60-70 percentile.

To get a 10, you'd need at least a 66-70 (scaled) score in each category. This is equivalent to the 85-90 percentile.

To get an 11, you'd need at least a 78-82 (scaled) score in each category. This is equivalent to the 96 to 98 percentile.