Yesterday, I completed the Test of Proficiency-Huayu (Mandarin) for Beginners in downtown Taipei. There were about 100 students at Tamkang University’s testing centre. I haven’t had a test for more than 5 years so I was pretty nervous. Students were from all over. I sat next to a German girl and a Panamanian guy. I think the Panamanian guy had had a big night as he kept putting his head on the table.

My great teacher 小六老師 was there to give support (on Saturday! :0) to me and all the students from Ming Chuan University’s Mandarin Studies & Culture Center. 謝謝小六老師！

The test ran for 80 minutes and was divided into two main parts, listening and reading.

At the start of each listing section there is an explanation in Chinese and English as well as an example question. During this time it is possible to complete some of the reading questions. I completed 11 reading questions by the time the listening section was finished. So I guess I saved about 10 minutes.

The seating arrangements were a little cramped but the audio setup was good. I only found one of the questions difficult to read. Overall I think the test was well run.

I recently received an email from SC-TOP in response to my complaints about the lack of resources, namely targeted word lists:

Hi,

We’ll announce the new 8000 words for each level in the end of June this year.

Please find them on our website: http://www.sc-top.org.tw/ at that time.

Thank you very much!!

Best Regards,

Steering Committee for the Test Of Proficiency-Huayu (SC-TOP)
–

國家華語測驗推動工作委員會
Steering Committee for the Test Of Proficiency-Huayu (SC-TOP)
電話 Tel：+886-2-3343-3900
傳真 Fax：+886-2-3343-2413

I guess I’ll have to wait and see if they follow through on this. I won’t be holding my breath but hopefully SC-TOP will provide more resources for test takers soon.

Update 05/13:

Blogger Shu Files wrote about her experience with the Test Of Proficiency-Huayu. She appears to have attempted the intermediate level.

So I totally bombed the Huayu Test of Proficiency today. Well, maybe bomb is a little bit inaccurate, but I didn’t finish the test. I’m upset I didn’t budget my time more wisely because what happened was that I spent a lot of time on the grammar section, my weak point, and as a result did not have enough time to finish the reading comprehension section, which I did quite well in when I pre-tested myself. DAMMIT! Anyway, this means that I won’t get a certificate of proficiency this time, but at least I will still be able to use the results as a diagnostic tool when I get them back.

Complete post here.