HSK

I have been turning myself into a robot for the last 2 weeks or so in preparation for my HSK exam. The HSK is a Mandarin proficiency test run by the Chinese government. It consists of 154 multiple-choice questions covering listening, grammar, reading comprehension and fill-in-the-blanks, along with 16 questions which require you to fill in a Chinese character. In all, there are 170 questions, which have to be done in 145 minutes! Time is really tight so the only way to get a good score is practise like mad beforehand. I took the test yesterday and found it fairly tough. For no reason I can figure out (except for laziness on the part of the people who design the exam questions), they don’t release past papers for HSK, except for one 2005 paper, which is available to buy. I did that test on Saturday and did fairly well on it. Compared with that test, yesterday’s seemed a lot tougher! Well, let’s hope I can fluke a good score! Results are out in a month.