HSK 4 study guide
HSK 4 · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
HSK 4 is a level of the HSK (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi), the Chinese language proficiency test suite operated by the Chinese Tests Service Website (中文考试服务网). The source page for this level returned an error and did not display level-specific details, so this introduction describes only what the source confirms: HSK 4 belongs to the HSK3.0 framework, and the official site provides an Examination Syllabus, Sample Questions, and a Competency Profile for HSK3.0. Candidates should consult those documents for the official scope of HSK 4. The exam is intended for learners who need a recognized measure of Chinese proficiency for study, work, or personal goals, but the source does not specify prerequisites or target audiences for this level. Topics on this exam: Listening, Reading, Writing, and Translation. The HSK 4 study guide has 4 sections and about 1,320 words.
01Listening (听力)
Listening (听力) is the first HSK 4 domain. At this level the cumulative vocabulary is about 3,245 words, so recordings are short but dense: everyday dialogues, announcements and short passages about study, work, travel, health and relationships. Items are multiple-choice and each recording is played once, so you must extract who, what, when, where, why and attitude in real time. Track the second speaker's function: agreement, refusal, correction, suggestion or complaint.
287 words, about 1 min02Reading (阅读)
Reading (阅读) is the second HSK 4 domain. It mixes three task types: 选词填空 (banked cloze), 排列顺序 (sentence ordering) and 阅读理解 (short passages with questions). The section tests grammar, cohesion and reading speed rather than literary interpretation, so every answer must be supported by the text itself. In 选词填空, classify each option by part of speech first.
347 words, about 2 min03Writing (书写)
Writing (书写) is the third HSK 4 domain. It contains controlled production tasks: 完成句子, where you arrange given words or phrases into a grammatical sentence, and 看图用词造句, where you write one sentence using a supplied word and the content of a picture. Accuracy of word order, particles and measure words matters far more than length or literary style. Find the main verb first, then place the subject before it.
360 words, about 2 min04Translation (翻译)
Translation (翻译) is the fourth HSK 4 domain. It tests sentence-level transfer: you receive a sentence in one language and must produce a faithful sentence in the other. Scoring weighs meaning, grammar and natural collocation, so a word-for-word rendering loses marks even when every individual word seems correct. Segment the sentence first: main clause, subordinate clause, modifiers.
326 words, about 2 min