"It was not difficult," said Emma Grahan, a Canadian girl who has been living in Beijing for just six months.
A Grade-7 student at the World Youth Academy (WAY), Grahan was the only pupil from the school who attended the HSK Elementary-Intermediate exam last Sunday morning.
"It is always important to have a strong foreign language skill," said the girl.
"We have Chinese language courses in three levels at the school, and I am at the top level," she said. "But we don't have training courses on HSK."
HSK is the abbreviation of Chinese pinyin "Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi,()" or the Chinese Proficiency Test. HSK consists of a series of tests to assess the Chinese language proficiency of non-native speakers. Its official website shows that HSK has been set up in 140 testing centres in 34 countries since it began. By the end of 2003, more than 300,000 overseas examinees had taken HSK.
"Emma Grahan was just one of the 8,000 foreigners who attended the HSK exams at the Beijing Language and Culture University on Saturday and Sunday," said Sun Dejin, director of the Centre of the Chinese Proficiency Test at the university. "The total number of students attending the HSK exams across China exceeded 30,000.
"Compared with the HSK exams last May, the number of students attending HSK increased by over 20 per cent, while the average growth rate is 30 per cent or so for the past few years," Sun said.
The HSK Elementary-Intermediate exam still has the most examinees, more than 22,000 people this time, while Sun pointed out there has been an increasing number of students attending the HSK Advanced since last year.
In terms of nationalities, the Republic of Korea has the largest student number attending the HSK, followed by Japan, Thailand, Viet Nam and the United States.
"Korean students are still the leading group at 73 per cent of all examinees, but the number has declined from 83 per cent last year," revealed the director. "The number of American students is growing. In general, there are more students from more countries attending the HSK."
"HSK is very important to the Korean or Japanese students because most of them hope to go to Chinese universities or find a job in a Korean or Japanese company in China. So they need to pass the Level 8, or the HSK Elementary-Intermediate level," said Qi Fang, a Chinese language teacher at the Bridge School, one of the leading language training school in Beijing .
"Anyone who passes the HSK exam will be given a certificate, which gives a detailed description on the person's level of Chinese, what he can do using the language, so it is very important to an employer," echoed Sun.
For example, a person with a "Chinese Proficiency Certificate" qualified above the HSK Level 6, can attend the higher institutions of education in China for courses in literature, history and Chinese medicine. Someone with a "Chinese Proficiency Certificate" qualified above HSK Level 9 can attend the higher institutions of education in China to take courses for post-graduates. People with "Chinese Proficiency Certificate" qualified for HSK Basic, Elementary-Intermediate and Advanced levels, can apply for jobs in organizations that need personnel with Chinese language proficiency.
The director is a bit worried about the nickname for HSK: "Chinese TOEFL" and misunderstanding that HSK is only needed for overseas students studying in China.
"Basically, the HSK exam is a standard set for people from across the world who use Chinese as a foreign language to find out their level of Chinese," Sun said. "Students can take the exam in Japan, and the paper and the standard is just the same."
During the two days of examinations, Sun also found that some students were attending both HSK Elementary-Intermediate and HSK Advanced exams because they were not sure of their own language abilities. So, the director suggests students check out the description of each exam on the HSK official website so that they can get the most accurate reflection of their Chinese level.
For example, the HSK Basic is appropriate for those beginners who have had 100-800 hours of formal education in modern Chinese, and have a basic vocabulary of 400 to 3,000 common Chinese characters (at the A and B levels), and who understand the corresponding Chinese grammar structures (at the A and B levels).
As the base for HSK, Beijing Language and Culture University itself serves about 6,000 students studying Chinese on campus, and provides Chinese training for overseas students from beginner to PhD level, the most complete system in China.
"Last year, the first foreign student graduated from Beijing Language and Culture University with a doctorate, and there are now about 20 foreign students completing their doctorates ," said Sun.
For more information, visit the websites: www.hanban.edu.cn to search for HSK testing information or www.hsk.org.cn to search for HSK Basic, HSK Elementary-Intermediate, HSK Advanced and corresponding information.
(China Daily 04/27/2006 page16)
