Fifteen tests, one for each lesson of HSK Standard Course 1, and a final paper over the whole book. Every question uses only the words taught up to that lesson, so a test is worth taking the moment you finish the chapter — and every answer comes with the reason, not just a tick.
HSK is the official Chinese proficiency test, run in six levels. Level 1 is the entry point, and it is genuinely reachable: 150 words and about thirty hours of study. Finishing HSK Standard Course 1 is designed to be enough to pass it.
Forty questions in about forty minutes: twenty listening and seventeen reading, plus the time to transfer your answers. There is no writing section at Level 1 and every question is multiple choice or matching. The pass mark is 120 out of 200.
At Level 1 the real paper prints pinyin above every character, so you are never asked to read characters unaided. That is why these tests concentrate on words and grammar rather than on character recognition.
Twenty of the forty questions are listening, and each recording is played twice. Written practice alone will not get you there — say every new word aloud and listen to the course audio until the tones are automatic.
They follow the book chapter by chapter rather than mixing everything, so a test is worth taking the day you finish a lesson. Nothing appears in a test before the lesson that teaches it.
A wrong answer tells you which one was right and why — that 有 takes 没 and never 不, that a time word goes before the verb, that 会 is a skill and 能 is permission. Getting a question wrong and understanding why is worth more than getting it right by luck.
Take a chapter test right after the lesson, then take it again a week later — the second score is the one that tells you whether it stuck. Leave the final paper until you have been through all fifteen.
These tests will tell you what you have forgotten. A tutor will tell you why, fix your tones, and drill the listening half that practice papers cannot. We prepare students for HSK 1 to 6 — at home, at our office or online, in Khmer or English.