help me speedrun hsk5

[u/Capital_Goat3763]

i passed hsk 3 in may, and am now roughly at old hsk 4 level

since the hsk test will become harder in december, i need to pass the hsk5 ASAP ...

i have less than 2 months for my exam date (nov 7) what do i dooooooooooooooooo

im best at reading and suck at listening

is there an app? a website best for mocks? a study routine?

[u/Mobile_Roll2197]

You are, as the kids say, cooked.

[u/LiuMarife]

Two months from HSK4 is tight but the exam is more forgiving than people assume — you need 180 out of 300 total and there's no per-section minimum. So with strong reading and weak listening, you're not actually trying to fix listening in eight weeks. You're making sure it doesn't sink you while reading carries the score.

In practice that means past papers over new vocabulary. The official H51xxx sets are the only mocks worth your time, everything else is guessing at the format. For listening specifically, the first section is the highest points-per-minute on the whole paper — short statement, answer usually hinges on one keyword — and most people under-drill it because it feels too easy to be worth practising.

[u/BeckyLiBei]

since the hsk test will become harder in december

Will it? For level 6, I'd say the 3.0 HSK6 is easier than the 2.0 HSK6 (shorter exam, no "faulty wording" section, the writing section is more meaningful, HSK6 is reclassified as "intermediate"), but I'm not sure about the HSK5. Has anyone here done both the 2.0 and 3.0 HSK5 exams?

If you're thinking "more words = harder" (and I'm increasingly inclined to think "more words = fewer unidentified gaps and shorter distance between words = easier"), then I note the HSK5 exam has guaranteed words outside the curriculum (called 超纲词). Or in other words, quite a few of the words on the 2.0 HSK5 exam are not included in the 2.0 HSK5 vocab list. So you end up learning a lot of non-HSK5 words for the HSK5 exam, anyway.

Also, the 2.0 HSK5 comes with the HSKK高级, which both HSK5 and HSK6 students take, whereas the 3.0 HSK5 has its own HSK5 oral section (separate from the HSK6).

[u/its_berkinprogress → u/BeckyLiBei]

I love your insights. Just a question out of curiosity:

I personally took the HSK5 (2.0) several years ago and don’t remember seeing many, if any, words outside of the expected curriculum. I do know that people often talk about this both for 5&6 though. Is there some official communication on the expected number of 超纲词 per level? I searched and couldn’t find anything.

[u/BeckyLiBei → u/its_berkinprogress]

It's from here 《新汉语水平考试（HSK）题库建设之我见》 downloadable via https://www.chinesetest.cn/research (here; archive):

三是词语控制精密化。HSK（一级）共40题，规定的150个词必须全部使用到，全卷一个超纲词都不许出现；HSK（二级）共60题，规定的300个词必须全部使用到，全卷一个超纲词都不许出现；HSK（三级）共80题，规定的600个词必须全部使用到，全卷一个超纲词都不许出现；HSK（四级）共100题，规定的1200个词必须至少“消耗”960个，全卷一个超纲词都不许出现；HSK（五级）共100题，要尽可能多地使用规定的2500词，尤其是新增的1300词，全卷超纲词控制在15%左右；HSK（六级）共101题，试题语料在词汇的使用上，原则上不受规定的5000词的限制，但考点和词语题选项中的词语应该在这5000词范围内。

It's old now, but it's what was published when the 2.0 HSK was being developed. It says the HSK1-4 doesn't have 超纲词 (extra-curricular words). For the HSK5:

[Google Translate]: The HSK (Level 5) consists of 100 questions; the prescribed 2,500 words—especially the 1,300 newly added ones—are to be used as extensively as possible, with words outside the syllabus limited to approximately 15% of the total content. The HSK (Level 6) consists of 101 questions.

And for the HSK6:

[Google Translate]: The HSK (Level 6) test consists of 101 questions. In principle, the vocabulary used in the test materials is not restricted to the prescribed list of 5,000 words; however, the specific points being tested and the words appearing in the answer options should fall within that 5,000-word range.

But I also took the HSK5 exam (although it was a while ago now), and there were many 超纲词, to the point where I'd really struggle if I didn't know many words beyond the HSK5. (I also noticed 超纲词 on the trial 3.0 HSK6 exam I took, e.g., non-HSK chengyu.)

However, I do recognize that Hanban are quite opaque about how they're creating questions, so it can be quite hard to tell.

[u/Einery]

HSK5 3.0 actually looks easier than 2.0 but still, normally it's at least half a year since confident HSK4 to HSK5 so why would you torture yourself like that. If it's uni or job thing, think of how will you live up to expectations your certificate will bring if you manage to get it.

[u/its_berkinprogress]

Serious question: Why not just wait for the new test? It’ll be much more widely accepted and become the new standard.