Mandarin Monday: Taking the HSK 3 Exam? Here’s What to Expect (Plus Test Hacks!)

So finally, I took the Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK) or the Chinese language proficiency exam! My 2018 New Year’s resolution was to pass it in December, but I had been crazily preoccupied almost the whole year that I shelved my plan of taking it. Instead, I resorted to self-studying (which resulted in numerous Mandarin Monday articles) and, ultimately, enrolling in a Chinese class.

After I wrote my Mandarin Monday on the first 100 characters every beginner needs to memorize, I knew that the HSK 1 (the most basic level) was a tad piece of a cake and so I aimed for a level that has more characters: either level 2 (with 300 characters and pinyin) or level 3 (600 characters without pinyin).

My Chinese teachers at Purple Bamboo Language School believe I can do up to level 4 (1,200 characters without pinyin), but it’s too much, given I still get confused at a lot of grammar construction. So I settled for the online HSK 3, which was surprisingly difficult! My teachers, however, have given me simple HSK hacks in the writing component of the exam. But, of course, it’s still better if you understand the whole thing!

 

Listening (听力, tīnɡlì)

The Listening component has 40 items divided into four sets with different question formats. You have one and a half minutes at the most to finish this component, but you’ll feel time will just past by so quickly!

This is actually my dreaded part of the exam since I still have a hard time pronouncing the tones. Compared to daily conversations with real people, however, the recordings of sentences and dialogues are slow and sound so robotic that make it easier to understand.

In the Listening component, each question is repeated twice. The general strategy here is to review the answers first (but you’ll have a few seconds to read them), and then listen carefully to the initial question. If you understand it, select the answer right away. If not, listen to the repeat and just wait for any keyword that is closely related to an answer.

Part 1: You’ll select answers from the photo prompts.
Difficulty level: 2/5
Strategy: Listen for keywords.

Part 2: A set of 10 questions where you’ll be asked if the prompt is true or false.
Difficulty level: 3/5
Strategy: This is quite tricky, especially if you’re not familiar with characters and grammatical structures.

Part 3 and Part 4: Select from three choices.
Part 3 is a simple two-way conversation, while Part 4 is a complete dialogue. In both parts, you’ll be asked what idea can you derive from the conversations.
Difficulty level: 2/5
Strategy: Keywords! Especially in Part 4, the answer is directly mentioned in the dialogue. But let me remind you, there is no pinyin so you really need to be able to read the characters.

 

Reading (读书 dúshū)

The Reading component has three parts with 10 questions each, and you’ll be given 30 minutes to finish everything. So talk about time pressure!

I thought this will be the easier part of the exam, but it’s not. Especially if you see that clock ticking, you’ll definitely suffer a mental block. Since you’ll be forced (or not) to skim the content, there’s a high chance that you’ll mistake similar-looking characters like 复习 fùxí “to review” and 夏习 xià xí – no such a word, but one can infer that it’s a “summer review”. Notice that one downward stroke in 复 and 夏? Read everything so fast and you’ll miss those nuances.

Part 1: Match two sentences
Difficulty level: 4/5
Strategy: This is perhaps the most confusing part of the exam mainly because a beginner may directly translate everything, thus losing the context of each sentence. When you do that (which I’ve done, too!), you’ll feel that the sentences do not make sense. The important thing, however, is to detect the context of each sentence or locate a keyword. If a sentence refers to a location, find the answer that mentions a location or an action that corresponds to the idea of a place. If you read something with 问题 (wèntí, “question”/”problem”), it’s highly likely the answer is with 解决 (jiějué “to solve”).

Part 2: Fill in the blank with the right word
Difficulty level: 1/5
Strategy: As long as you’re familiar with HSK 3 words, you’ll be ok. Look for the preceding or succeeding characters because you can know if the answer is a noun (if the preceding character is a number, the answer should be a measure word), an adjective/adverb (if the next word is a noun or a verb), or a verb (if the sentence follows the “somebody + (time/place) + do what” pattern).

Part 3: Get the idea of a sentence
Difficulty level: 3/5
Strategy: This part can be challenging if you have less time to finish everything. The sentences are quite basic but watch out for unfamiliar words because they’ll eat much of your time. Try to answer all the easier items first, then return to the harder ones later.

 

Writing (书写 shūxiě)

The shortest component, Writing only has two parts of 5 questions each. Your familiarity of Chinese grammatical structure will be tested in 10 minutes!

Part 1: Drag and drop
Difficulty level: 3/5
Strategy: There are groups of words which you’ll need to place in the right order. Remember the “somebody/something + (time/place) + do what” pattern and you’ll be fine. The challenge, though, is locating non-human subjects like 这是城市 “this town” or 朋友的猫 “a friend’s cat”.

Part 2: Find the missing character
Difficulty level: 2/5
Strategy: Since you’ll be able to use the keyboard to input your answer, you might as well type the whole sentence in pinyin to find the missing character. Then just select that character and you’ll be fine.

 

So, what happens next?

If you took the online exam, you’ll receive your scores after two weeks (usually the release of the results is mentioned on the HSK registration website). Those 80 exam items have a total score of 300, and you need 180 to pass. The good news is – I passed the exam and got a score higher than I expected!

And there you go! Those are just my strategies based on the hacks given to me by my teachers. The most important idea that I want to share as a Chinese learner myself, however, is to review the characters and their pinyin and speak to locals as much as you can. 加油 Jiāyóu!

 

Photo: Andy Penafuerte III