HSK

15 Sep, 2026

I was just poking around stuff I've posted on Linked In over the years. One was an article I posted on Christmas Eve 2014 about how I'd just picked up my HSK certificate. I'd done HSK (汉语水平考试/Hànyǔ Shuǐpíng Kǎoshì/Chinese Proficiency Test) a second time in November that year. I noticed that I ended that article with:

Now, once we get ourselves settled into New Zealand, perhaps I should start looking for the next opportunity to take HSK and get an even better score...

Twelve years later... No, I haven't had a third attempt at HSK.

Part of the reason to start this blog is a few years' frustration at feeling "out of the loop" with China. Perhaps, just for the hell of it, I should look in to doing HSK again.

Anyway, just for old times' sake, here's a lightly edited version of what I put up on Linked In all those years ago:

What strange scores! Listening is way down in the 40th percentile, Reading is ok, and Writing is really good!

My scores are pretty much as I expected, I knew I'd stuffed up Listening and wasn't playing at my best through Reading, and yet when I walked out of the test all that I was worried about with Writing was whether I'd lose marks over a too informal, rural-market-place-storyteller tone. So I was confident about my Writing, and hoping I'd done better than expected with the other two.

So what happened?

Listening came first, then Reading, and Writing at the end. I was a bit nervous going in. "That's normal", you say, but it's not normal for me. I'm normally cool and calm before an exam, and I was the first time I did HSK, under the old system, a few years ago. Somehow this time I was nervous.

The first two questions in Listening threw me off, and I had a bit of trouble getting my focus back. That, I think, is the Number 1 reason for not doing so well in Listening. The format of the test was easy - listen to a recording, answer a few multiple choice questions, move on to the next recording. Timing was strict, but that's ok, it was nowhere near as strict as the old HSK. But those first two questions were strange and threw me off balance.

By the time Reading started I was doing better, but still wasn't quite back in the groove. My big problem there was pacing. I took too long on the first couple of texts and so had to rush the final questions. Also, I pondered a couple of questions too long and the computer flipped over to the next screen before I could choose my answer (all multiple choice, again).

Writing was fairly simple: 10 minutes to read a 1000-character text, then 35 minutes to write a 400 character summary. I had two problems with writing. The first was potentially serious - I didn't recognise one character in a person's name. Fortunately it was a given name, so I referred to him as 'Mr Guo' through my summary. So not a major deal, but I'm sure I lost a few points for that. The second was technical: To type Chinese on a computer one must use an Input Method Editor. Most of them are Pinyin-based, so you type out the word in Pinyin (minus tones), the IME puts up a series of likely characters, you make sure the correct characters are entered. Good IMEs are pretty efficient at guessing the right characters first time round. The button to toggle between a regular English-language keyboard input and the IMEs (most computers come with two or three, and there are others you can install according to taste) is usually in the lower right of your screen, but on the test computer it was up the top in some obscure place. I had to call a supervisor over to find it for me. But fortunately I was in the test-taking groove and feeling good, so once that was on I was sorted and it was all sweet. I understood the text easily (apart from that one character), and finished writing with plenty of time to go over and check, edit and polish my summary.

I could've been better prepared for the test. I spent too much of last summer on Classical Chinese, which is interesting, but not a part of the HSK, and should've spent more time on Modern Chinese, which is both interesting and what the HSK tests. I definitely should've spent more time working on reading speed and practicing skimming and scanning. I should've registered for the exam and started going over practice tests earlier. But I didn't.

Better preparation would've helped immensely because I'm not a full time student. Study is something I squeeze into my spare time. And so, of course, Murphy struck again, as he always does with that infuriating law of his, and in the couple of weeks before the test work demands came up, some foreseeable, others out of the blue, competing with test prep for my spare time.

On the back of the HSK certificate is a brief explanation of the six levels of HSK. For Level VI, it says:

HSK（六级）：能用汉语自如地进行各种社会交际活动，汉语应用水平接近汉语为母语者。

My translation:

HSK (Level VI): Able to use Chinese to carry out every kind of social interaction, Chinese ability approaches that of a native speaker.

So although I think my Listening and Reading abilities are better than my grades on this test suggest, overall I'm pretty happy with my score on this round of HSK. Now, once we get ourselves settled into New Zealand, perhaps I should start looking for the next opportunity to take HSK and get an even better score...