Unless you have a specific need to take the HSK, I don’t see much benefit in taking it. The test covers four topics (listening comprehension, reading comprehension, grammar, and character writing).If you do poorly in one topic, your total score is reflected accordingly.So, for example, an American Born Chinese who speaks fluently and reads well could get a low overall score if their character writing is weak.Yet, this person could function very well in China.
The average person who wants to learn to speak Chinese would benefit more from an oral proficiency examination, which tests a person’s ability to express himself/herself and to understand oral speech (see http://www.actfl.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3642).
Posted on: Taking the HSK
July 03, 2008, 09:01 PMUnless you have a specific need to take the HSK, I don’t see much benefit in taking it. The test covers four topics (listening comprehension, reading comprehension, grammar, and character writing). If you do poorly in one topic, your total score is reflected accordingly. So, for example, an American Born Chinese who speaks fluently and reads well could get a low overall score if their character writing is weak. Yet, this person could function very well in China.
The average person who wants to learn to speak Chinese would benefit more from an oral proficiency examination, which tests a person’s ability to express himself/herself and to understand oral speech (see http://www.actfl.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3642).
Cf. guolanusa’s comments.