Hi

Thanks again for all your answers about HSK. I have in the meantime done the HSK3 practice test and found out that it already is too easy and I would get pretty much everything right. So I'm now looking at the HSK 4 which is closer to my level.

What I realised when I did these tests that the oral test wasn't mentioned anywhere but I distinctly remember people mentioning it. After googling a bit I find some more mentions of it but I couldn't find a description of what it all entailed. Has anyone got an idea what the format is of in the HSK 4 test?

Thanks:)

David

Nothing to add -- feature request -- when you want to follow a thread, make it possible to use the tick box above to get emailed replies without having to clutter up the discussion forum?

Hey David, It's completely separate from the written test, and there are now 3 speaking tests 初/中/高. I think the old HSK had a spoken bit included but only at advanced level.

Don't know about HSK 4, but HSK advanced (old format) was reading out loud a short passage (3 or 4 paragraphs, about a 2 or 3 minutes) and answering two questions (my ones were do you prefer a big company or a small company, and what makes a good student), each answer being about 3 minutes. All recorded into a dictaphone type of thing. I missed a couple of characters (including 铁 :( easy one) in the reading out loud, and my what makes a good student was pretty weak, couldn't think of anything! I think it would help to work on tones for this, but most important is knowing the pinyin for as many characters as you can.

阿福, I don't follow. The checkbox above does allow you to get emailed replies, and you don't have to post in a thread to use it. Please explain?

Nick, sorry, I thought you had to submit "hit [OK]" to get the tick box registered, but [OK] with a blank text box complains of course. However, it seems not to be necessary. Is this all stored in a cookie? (maybe take this definition offline :-))

No problem. It is submitted to the server with asynchronous JavaScript. No need for a client-side cookie: the server stores the setting and uses it to render the forum thread pages with the checkbox checked or not (as well as doing the emailing when someone else posts).

I took the 高级HSK[改进版] in December, is that the one you're talking about?

Basically you first listen to a recording of a conversation between two or more people discussing some topic, this can be a few minutes long, possibly challenging, and it's a good idea to take notes. Then, you'll be asked a question. You'll get a couple minutes to prepare and then three minutes to respond. You'll be sitting in a room full of other people all talking into microphones at the same time as you.

For the next part you're given two topics and asked to choose one to discuss, for example, "发展经济和保护环境哪一个更重要？ 为什么？” Then, you get two minutes to prepare and two minutes to speak.

Since you have so much time to prepare you should definitely get some practice tests though, look for HSK 模拟试题集. And be clear on if you're doing the revised or original version because they're two different tests with two different grading scales.

Thanks for the answers!

Will definitely try to get my hands on to some of those practice tests....although it sounds as if the most challenging part is not the actual task but rather doing it with an army of other people distracting you while you answer the questions....

Might depend where you do the test. When I did it there were only 1 or 2 people in each room.

Definitely get practice tests. If you can't find the new ones the old ones are close, so is still worthwhile getting them.

"although it sounds as if the most challenging part is not the actual task but rather doing it with an army of other people distracting you while you answer the questions...."

Oh god, for me it totally was. I had done a number of practice tests with my teacher prior to the and did fine, but when it came to the actual test I pretty much crashed and burned, horribly. I'll give it another shot in a year when I'm much more comfortable speaking the language.

I would be taking the exam in Switzerland in Zurich. I do have some hopes that there aren't too many people there, but the university does send a few students studying Chinese to the test and I vaguely recall the sentence "will only take place if there are enough applicants"....so I had better take my practice tests and practice at the railwaystation...

Good luck to you, digilypse, for round 2.