In HSK listening, examinees are required to understand the main theme and content of a passage reading at a rate of 130 words per minute, and distinguish the scene, relationship of characters, identity of characters, intention and meanings of the passage. In addition, listening is a comprehensive testing involving pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and so on. Listening test is the first and most difficult part of in HSK. Therefore, having a good performance in HSK listening will decrease the examinees' pressure. In general, there are several factors that may affect the examinee to perform well in listening test. Distinguishing different tones: If the examinee has problems in distinguish tones, he may feel difficult to know the right meanings. Speaking rate: According to the test outline, the passage is read at the rate of 130 words per minute. Be sure to get familiar with the speaking rate when taking exercises. Vocabulary: Enlarge the vocabulary and do not let the new words interfere with understanding of passage. Background knowledge: The more examinee gets familiar with the background knowledge, the better he or she answers questions. If a passage talks about taking air plane and the examinee do not have that kind of experience, examinee will have some difficulty answering the questions Psychological quality: Do not be nervous about taking listening test, especially when you do not follow one or two questions. When you are thinking about the previous questions, you may miss the following information. Tips: The main tips for taking listening test are how to grab the keywords, how to predict the questions, how to guess the main idea and how to use exclusive method. 1. Get familiar with "W form" questions 2. Judging the intention of the speakers 3. Be aware of the context and main information 4. Learn how to predict questions 5. Arrange your time properly 6. Use exclusive method to answer the questions 7. Take notes Useful Tips on preparing listening test Reading out sentence per sentence (i.e. repeating what you hear on your mp3). It allows focus on each individual word and tones in context and also introduces another "memory" variable (speaking), which can further aid the listening skills. If you have time, I recommend that you listen to a text sentence by sentence and then write them in hanzi. Revision also plays a key role here. Revising three to four times with a given time interval helps retain the material whether it is aural, oral or reading comprehension. |