a couple of months ago i thought that since i was leaving china soon and had been studying chinese for 1 year and a half, i might as well have some sort of certification. so, at my teachers advice, i registered for the hsk (the standard chinese test for non-native speakers, also called the chinese toefl), but on the basic level, because i hadn’t done any specific preparation for this test. to take the test on the basic level you have to know around 800 characters/1033 words.
so last month, i did the test along with a lot of other hopeful students. it’s a multiple choice test from beginning to end, and it has 3 parts: listening, grammar and reading comprehension. the first 2 parts are ok, but the texts they put on the reading comprehension part are really hard, some of them i was completely clueless… i honestly can’t understand the difficulty gap between the three parts. why would they make a reasonably easy test and then make the last part 100 times harder? :|
anyway, a month later, ladies and gentlemen, i am very proud to announce that i’ve passed the HSK exam! :D i was given a level 2 grade, which translates in
“The candidate has acquired the basic (middle) Chinese competence that can meet the demand of basic daily life, a certain range of social communication and study to some degree. “
yay! i’m really happy about this, and it’s a big motivation for me to keep learning chinese elsewhere. perhaps in a couple of years i’ll be ready for the intermediate exam. :)
