I am planning to take the HSK test at the end of this year. I know there is a new HSK with different level-system. However when I had a mock HSK test in a university one year ago, they still had the old HSK. Also, googling for HSK gives mostly results relevant to the old HSK, as do the websites of my old school and even the place where they take the HSK in my city (in China), and previous but recent posts on this forum also talk about the old one except for this one: http://www.skritter.com/forum/topic?id=34586336&comments=5

So my question is, are all the HSK's taken now the new ones? On some forums it seems people had a choice. I have to say I like the new one much better than the old one, much less confusing.

Secondly, they say the oral part is independent of the written part. Does this mean that there are two different HSK certificates? So I understand you don't necessarily have to take both of them to get the (a) hsk certificate?

If somebody can give me a clear answer on this, much appreciated, all the info i found was very ambiguous.

Finally, if someone here already took the new one, what level did you take and do you think the difficulty was similar to the same level in the mock tests? I took another old hsk mock test element/interm last week and had a relatively low score. Just yesterday i took some written level 4 mock test of the new one, almost aced it and then level 5 and still got a decent score. This seems not to correspond. I don't think I should be able to get a level 5 (as in second highest level) of a chinese profiency test. Most texts were pretty tough characterwise for me, but I knew enough to get the meaning and the questions are so straightforward, most of them you can just get literally from the text. Also a sentence like "这个菜的味道怎么样" in the 'put the words in the right order'-part, seems a little easy for level 4.

Sorry long post, if you're interested let's discuss.

Took the new advanced hsk last year. Yeah, it's split up into three tests, oral, written, and the main writing/listening comprehension test. They're separate tests and if you only want to take one or two you can. I found the difficulty of the text to be comparable to the mock exams but the questions, for the most part, felt more difficult on the actual test.

The new HSK system has three levels of tests, not six:
Advanced
6 Advanced with Honors
5 Advanced
Intermediate
4 Intermediate with Honors
3 Intermediate
Elementary
2 Elementary with Honors
1 Elementary

yeah that's also what wikipedia says, although the official hanban site speaks of six levels and only the oral part having three levels, each of which corresponds with two levels of the other part.

Also most sites only speak of two separate exams, the listening and reading comprehension being one exam.

Strange. The longer i am searching for answers the more confused it gets. Unless they changed some things this year again.

http://www.helsinki.fi/hum/confucius/archive/HSK/HSK_info2010.pdf

here we go, finally found a clear explanation, and this is written in 2010 so probably the most recent.

I was going to take the HSK at SOAS in London this year. I was a bit thrown when they told me about the new levels as I had no idea which was suitable. SOAS was only offering exams up to level 3.

Looking at mock tests, I have the same feelings as Sonorier. I think I would have a good chance with level 5 but find it strange that I should be even close to the second highest level.

Something I don't like about the new system is that you need to know your Chinese level quite accurately before taking the test. There's a good chance the exam you choose will be so easy that you're wasting your time, or just a little too difficult that you come away with nothing.

Probably I'll wait a bit longer and have a crack at Level 6.

To answer your question about which test you can write, there are still some places in mainland China offering the old version (though not for too much longer). I'll be taking the old version later this month.

Last year when I took the HSK, I took the old version. I could have enrolled for the new version, but was glad that I didn't because the students who enrolled for it at my school (in Xi'an) got a bad deal. Apparently, in Xi'an there were not enough students enrolled in the advanced levels of the new HSK for the exam to take place. The students who enrolled for it in Xi'an were not given their money back and were expected to find their own way to Beijing to take it. So, make sure that your city actually offers the new HSK at the level you want to take it.

For anybody who is interested:

in Guangxi, there seem to be no testcenters that offer the new version. I could have expected that from the village-wanting-to-be-a-city Guilin, but even in Nanning apparently only old. They told my friend on the phone that the old version was easier. Well not in my experience, I didn't even get some of the answers when reviewing after taking the test, but whatever. At least I don't have to worry about taking which of the six levels.

do you know new hsk level 4 equals which level of the old hsk? thanks for the answer!!!