HSK wiki / help please

[realmayo]

I was looking on these forums for some basic info on the HSK (no plans to take it -- I was actually looking to see what the levels 1 2 3 4 mean, as used on Roddy's vocab database here).

Anyway I ploughed through plenty of the many search results for HSK here, but couldn't find what I was looking for. No doubt this information is on here somewhere, apologies in advance if it was staring me in the face:nono. But: can someone please answer my questions or point me in the right direction. And: is there any value in a wiki or stickied page with this basic stuff and further links available at a glance? Thanks.

The questions:

i) What the levels 1 2 3 4 mean? ie how would you describe the level of someone's Chinese if they are suited for each of those levels?

ii) How do the scores work?

iii) Do you think HSK exams are a decent benchmark of ability/improvement or do they bias towards certain areas (eg require extensive knowledge of, say, writing proper names versus saying everyday adjectives??).

Thanks!

[roddy]

1. See here. should clarify things a little. As far as actually grading someone's Chinese is concerned, think about the HSK grades you get, not vocab levels which aren't really meant for student consumption.

2. Which scores? Work how?

3) I'd say they're decent, but the new revised versions are showing up the originals as lacking in real world materials, and failing to test skills in a balanced way.

[realmayo]

Thanks.

re: 2) scores -- sorry I meant grades. Just done a search here for and found what I wanted.

Also searched on wikipedia which had more details -- perhaps I should have looked there first but assumed these forums would be better.

[renzhe]

i) What the levels 1 2 3 4 mean? ie how would you describe the level of someone's Chinese if they are suited for each of those levels?

Those levels refer to vocabulary lists, and as roddy says, they aren't really meant for student consumption.

1-2 cover most of the vocabulary in HSK Basic

1-3 cover most of the vocabulary in HSK Elementary-Intermediate

1-4 cover most of the vocabulary in HSK advanced.

On their own, they are not a good measure of anything, other than a rough measure of your vocabulary knowledge, but people (including myself) use them as a guideline for learning characters and vocabulary. A lot of statistical work went into creating those lists after all, and they are a good approximation for important vocabulary you should know.

The GRADES you get on your HSK test (level 1-11), on the other hand, rate your Chinese language skills and are widely considered a good measure of your overall Chinese ability.