HSK

There have been some discussions on this topic both in the Blog and in the Forum - some nice insider reports included: http://blog.praxislanguage.com/2006/10/27/hsk/ http://forum.chinesepod.com/viewtopic.php?t=1959 http://forum.chinesepod.com/viewtopic.php?t=1751 http://forum.chinesepod.com/viewtopic.php?t=879 Mr. John Pasden himself has successfully done it a while ago: http://www.sinosplice.com/lang/studybooks/two-hsk-prep-books http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2003/12/16/hsk-the-final-stretch http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2004/02/12/hsk-scorecard

I figured there must have been. Thanks henning I will check them out.

I think john could probably ace it now if he took it again. But than again it like most standardized tests, they test how much you studied for the test more than they do your ability in the langauge. I met people in China who passed their band 8 and couldn't put together a well constructed sentence. Also I read that they recently changed the format for 2007 of the higher levels to include more spoken testing rather than just listening comprehension with tapes.

Yeah I took the HSK a couple months ago in Jinan, Shandong. I had 3 years of formal study at a US university and then lived in China for 1, so altogether 4 years. The HSK basically has two tests: 1.) Intermediate 2.) Advanced I STRONGLY reccommend taking the Intermediate test. I was the only American in the classroom, the rest were Korean, Malay, or Japanese. It's pretty difficult even if you can read, speak, and write very well, much like the level of advanced on cpod. Here's the thing: I am interviewing for jobs in the US dealing with China and haven't been asked about a formal score to quantify my ability. Usually during an interview, they will speak in Chinese. I have interviewed in Chinese and as long as you can show your skills during that, you are ok. Even though I thought I did alright on the HSK this summer, maybe band 6, I never got my score because there is no need to.

Yea that is the way i felt. i am going to take it but no jobs here that even require a chinese speaker have any mention of it. The Foreign Service here in Canada lists mandarin as one of the top 3 languages they looking for in their bilingual employees but they conduct their own testing, not using th HSK as a measure. If I wanted to study formally in the same program as the Chinese students I would need to have a at least a level 6 for arts and a 4 for anything else. I should have wrote it last year but I guess I will wait until after I finish at Zheda.

Yes, I think that's the most useful aspect of the HSK, to test into an all Chinese Program (with Chinese students) at a University.

I suggest you spend 5 minutes to know your Chinese level on http://www.learnmandarinonline.org/chineselevel.html , then you can decide something.

Whoa, I'm being talked about! Maybe I should say a few things. I'm not going to bother to take the Intermediate HSK again. Since I took it, I have gained a lot of vocabulary through reading, translation, and grad school in Chinese, and I have no doubt that an 8 would be a piece of cake now. My big takeaway from the HSK Intermediate was the importance of vocabulary. I would be interested in taking the Advanced HSK. I think I would have to push my skills to get a high score on that. I'm not too worried about the spoken elements, but to score high I would need to increase my reading speed and practice reading texts aloud. That is probably my greatest weakness in Chinese: reading an unfamiliar text aloud. It's extremely hard for me to do fluidly. For tons of accounts of the Advanced HSK, read this thread.

Thanks John. I am going to slowly wade through the 11 pages of post tomorrow. It seems like there is a lot on interesting Info on it.