Our HSK test for today covers a new type of question you'll find on the new HSK exam released this year. In addition to the older HSK test's multiple-choice fill-in-the-blank questions, on the new test you'll find questions where you are given both the incomplete sentences along with the missing words themselves. The challenge is to match the suggested entries to the correct sentences. And while this might seem simple, these questions are actually quite tricky.Do you need to worry about this new question type? If you're planning to take the HSK outside China this year the answer is a resounding yes: the test you take will have these questions on it. If you're inside China and planning to take the exam in 2010 you will still have a choice of which version of the HSK to take. So see how you do on this HSK test and explore our archives to decide which you prefer for yourself.
ckw4y
said on March 10, 2010
I'm still having technical issues with this question type. Whether I take it in Pinyin or Simplified, it always comes back as 0/15. My Chinese can't be THAT bad...
Echo
said on March 10, 2010
@ckw4y,
Zero? No way you can get a zero. Otherwise being your teacher, i need to kill myself first (just kidding) :D Let us see what the problem it is. Thanks for technical problems report!
--Echo
echo@popupchinese.com
trevelyan
said on March 10, 2010
@ckw4y and @Echo,
I'll take a look at things this afternoon. It's working for me in simplified, but maybe pinyin is still being problematic.
--david
trevelyan
said on March 10, 2010
@ckw4y,
I've just made some changes that should hopefully solve your problem. One thing to note is that when you're using pinyin, the tones need to be provided for the answers to be considered correct. Clicking submit and then clicking on the back button to change answers can also screw things up.
Anyway, if you keep having trouble can you tell me your browser and operating system again so we can test on the exact same setup as you?
--dave
luolin
said on March 11, 2010
Okay, same thing, I got 0/15. I could not even do that with the intermediate HSKs. I did this at school so the browser is internet explorer and I think it's XP. I used the cut and copy, was I supposed to use cut and paste? I am using simplified. I will try again and see if I get different results using cut and paste.Okay, I now know that I cannot use the "cut" feature. I must copy.
trevelyan
said on March 11, 2010
@luolin,
I'm guessing you're having the same problem we ran into with Chris yesterday. The issue we discovered there was that people were copying and pasting answers into the blanks provided, but not hitting "Enter" to submit them and lock them in. So as far as the server was concerned the answer hadn't actually been provided.
Practically speaking, this is a usability problem we need to get fixed on this end. In the interim, you should be able to tell if the system recognizes the answer, since once you hit enter your browser should display the missing word in either red or green depending on whether you got the answer right or wrong.
If this isn't the problem you're running into, can you send us details on your operating system and browser version so we can test locally? I'm hoping to get the auto-submit problem solved by later this morning Beijing-time.
Thanks,
--david
trevelyan
said on March 11, 2010
@luolin, @ckw4y,Just a quick note that the problems you guys reported should be fixed. The system is now closing all open questions before submitting them to the server to check the answers. Thanks for helping us get to the bottom of this and get it fixed for everyone.Best,--dave
luolin
said on March 12, 2010
Yep, everything is working correctly. Thanks
chioma_nweze
said on March 27, 2010
Please,can you send me the HSK question script direct in my email.I really appreciate your teaching.I know that with you ,I will make it.
Chioma
trevelyan
said on March 29, 2010
@chioma_nweze,
Thanks for the suggestion. We're planning to add (optional) daily academic emails eventually which will include links to newly published lessons, MP3 files, PDFs and our other lesson content. We haven't taken that step to date mostly because we don't want to be spamming people and want email signup to be optional.
We'll make a general announcement here on the site as well as in our monthly newsletter when that feature is ready to go. It should not be too far off now.
Best,
--david
Tristan
said on April 4, 2010
Guys, the pdf on this one cuts off the first 4 or so answers. The same thing's happened a couple of times before with other HSK tests. Not a huge deal as you can check the answers with the text file but maybe something to keep an eye on.
trevelyan
said on April 5, 2010
@tristan,
Thanks for the report and sorry for... lack of usability. I've added this to the TODO list and should get it taken care of in the next day or two.
--dave
