HSK Blues

Yesterday I took a practice HSK (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi) exam during class time. It's the Chinese equivalent of the TOEFL, which all non-native English speakers must take if they want to study in the States. It was fairly short, and mostly painless. I actually laughed to myself a few times. Not because it was so easy, but because I had no idea what the question was asking for.

Today in class we scored our tests. All together I scored almost 35%. This may appear terrible at first glance. Who wants to correctly answer only 1/3 of their exam? But it's graded on a scale between three and six. The better you do, the better your placement on the scale.

The test has four parts (listening, grammar, reading, and comprehensive), each part is scored separately, and your total test level is determined by the average of the four section's levels. I won't belabor the explanation. Anyway. On this practice test I scored approximately a level 3. The lowest. BUT, my teacher was encouraging. She said with only a little more practice I should be able to get to a level 4, no problem.

That bodes well for the future. Next year I'll take it again (probably more than once) and make a summit attempt (of the middle level test), to score a six. Until then, I'm thinking of taking up the saxophone, and playing a little blues.....