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Tips and strategies to help you ace your HSK exam

Listening to short passages and choosing the correct answer

  • 1

    Types of questions that appear: humorous, argumentative, introductory, new words or idioms introduction, news.

  • 2

    Quickly skim the answers, check if the answers contain time, location, information..., if so, listen carefully and catch keywords.

  • 3

    Pay attention to the last sentence!

  • 4

    For storytelling passages, pay attention to the last sentence, grasp details like "time, location, characters, what happened, cause, result".

  • 5

    Before the listening part, use the time during the music intro to read the first 5-10 answers.

  • 6

    Pay attention to distinguishing argumentative passages "认为,觉得,因此,所以...".

  • 7

    Oh, don't expect the answers to be exactly the same as the listening content!

Listening to interviews and answering questions

  • 1

    Should take advantage of reading through the answers before listening to the questions!

  • 2

    The questions asked by the host may match the questions in the test, pay attention!

  • 3

    Take notes while listening (for written tests).

  • 4

    If you can't answer a question, skip it and move on to the next one!

Listening to long passages and answering questions

  • 1

    Should take advantage of reading through the answers before listening to the questions!

Choosing the wrong sentence among 4 given sentences

  • 1

    This type of question does not require the candidate to understand the reading, so answers containing new words are not important.

  • 2

    No time to correct the answers.

  • 3

    Degree adverbs do not modify repetitive adjectives AABB.

  • 4

    Pay attention to the position of particles.

  • 5

    The error of repeated components is quite common, pay attention to sentences containing two similar words, the error is likely there.

  • 6

    In a complex sentence, if the subject of both clauses is the same, the conjunction will be placed after the subject.

  • 7

    In a complex sentence, if the subject of both clauses is different, the conjunction will be placed before the subject.

  • 8

    Time adverbials usually precede location adverbials.

  • 9

    Check whether the supplementary components in the sentence are adverbials or attributives to see if their positions are grammatically correct.

  • 10

    Missing components mean the sentence structure is incomplete, lacking some sentence components.

  • 11

    Two repeated components will often appear next to each other. So when reading the question, pay attention to whether the meanings of the adjacent words are completely identical.

  • 12

    When seeing a common structure in the sentence, think carefully and observe whether the structure is confused.

  • 13

    Logical order error is a very common mistake.

  • 14

    The correct logical order should be from past to future (time), from narrow to wide (space), from low to high (level).

  • 15

    Ambiguous sentences are sentences with unclear meanings, easily causing misunderstandings.

  • 16

    Find the subject, predicate, and object of the sentence, then check if these components combine correctly.

  • 17

    Find the supplementary components and the central word in the sentence, see if these two components can combine.

  • 18

    In comparative sentences, if the comparison result is adjectives, there will be no degree words like "很", "太", "非常" before it.

  • 19

    In comparative sentences, the comparison object after "比" can be omitted, but not before "比".

  • 20

    Should leave this part for the end!

Reading passages and choosing the correct answer

  • 1

    Use the elimination method to choose the answer.

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    If you don't know which word to fill in, do other blanks you are more sure about first.

  • 3

    Among the answers, if there are quantity words, judge which quantity word is correct first, then think about other answers.

  • 4

    Don't choose an answer just because one word is correct!

  • 5

    For explanatory passages, grasp the object and the order of explanation.

  • 6

    For narrative passages, grasp the identity, relationships between characters, main plot details, and pay special attention to the chronological order in the story.

  • 7

    For narrative passages, don't focus too much on grammar when choosing answers, but focus on the relationships between characters and plot details.

  • 8

    For argumentative passages, grasp the arguments and evidence.

  • 9

    Pay close attention to sentences using rhetorical devices like leverage, parallelism... in argumentative passages.

  • 10

    Especially in passages with historical elements, don't panic when seeing many new words, stay calm and analyze sentence components to make accurate judgments!

  • 11

    First, quickly understand the answers to differentiate them!

  • 12

    Remember to read the sentence before and after the blank!

  • 13

    Use the elimination method to solve the question!

  • 14

    Read the question carefully first, then skim the answers.

  • 15

    Skim the passage to find the position containing the needed information.

  • 16

    Skim to find verbs, subjects to understand the overall content of the sentence.

  • 17

    Reading with your eyes will be faster than reading aloud.

  • 18

    Remember to read carefully the first and last sentences of the passage!

Reading passages and writing summaries

  • 1

    Try to remember the time, location, characters, cause, development, result, and moral of the story (if any)!

  • 2

    Recite the reading method: 3 - 4 - 3 or 2 - 3 - 3 - 2 when reading the passage.

  • 3

    Read carefully the opening sentence of each paragraph!

  • 4

    Spend the first 3 minutes skimming the passage to understand the overall content.

  • 5

    Spend the next 4 minutes reading carefully to grasp details like: time, location, characters, main points, cause, development, result.

  • 6

    Spend the last 3 minutes reading again to remove redundant content, reinforce the main content needed in the summary, and remember the "key" words.

  • 7

    If the first and last sentences of the passage are not too long, try to memorize them.

  • 8

    Must remember the frequently appearing words/phrases in the passage!

  • 9

    For unknown words, guess the meaning, then find simpler words to remember!

  • 10

    For computer exams, if you encounter new words, you can guess and type the word according to pinyin!

  • 11

    If you can't guess the pinyin, you can type according to the following trick: type u + the components in the word. For example: the word "哨" will be typed as "ukouxiao".

  • 12

    The safe range is 400-430 words, at most 450 words!

  • 13

    The summary title must be a noun phrase, idiom.

  • 14

    The title must cover the entire content of the passage!

  • 15

    The title should be no more than 7 characters!

  • 16

    The keywords in the title are very likely to appear in the first or last part of the passage.

  • 17

    After reading the passage, write the title immediately!

  • 18

    Summarize according to the chronological, spatial order in the passage!

  • 19

    Absolutely do not create new details in the story.

  • 20

    Absolutely do not add personal opinions or feelings!

  • 21

    Remember that each paragraph in the summary must have at least 2 sentences.

  • 22

    The summary should be clearly divided into: Introduction (1 paragraph), body (about 2-3 small paragraphs), conclusion (1 paragraph)

  • 23

    Avoid expression errors like missing basic sentence components, word/collocation errors.

  • 24

    If you are afraid of grammatical errors in long compound sentences, break them into shorter correct sentences.

  • 25

    Adding four-character phrases, idioms, or "key" phrases to the summary is a highlight.

  • 26

    Skillfully using advanced grammatical structures will make the test score higher!

  • 27

    Limit using or quoting dialogues in the summary.

  • 28

    If you can't remember the character's name, you can use "先生", "他" for male characters, "女士", "她" for female characters instead!

  • 29

    Don't forget to indent 2 spaces at the beginning of each paragraph.

  • 30

    For written exams, each punctuation mark should be written in a separate box.

  • 31

    Spend the last 5 minutes reviewing the summary!