HSKK practice test: listen, speak and get scored online

What is the HSKK?

The HSKK (汉语水平口语考试) is the speaking test of the HSK family. It is a separate exam from the written HSK, with its own registration and its own certificate, and it comes in three levels: Beginner (初级), Intermediate (中级) and Advanced (高级). Everything you say is recorded and marked afterwards; nobody interviews you.

Each level is out of 100 points, and 60 is a pass. The levels are paired with the written exam: Beginner with HSK 1–2, Intermediate with HSK 3–4, Advanced with HSK 5–6. Universities and scholarship schemes in China often ask for an HSKK result next to the HSK one, at the matching level.

Under HSK 3.0, levels 3–6 each come with their own speaking test, registered together with the written exam and sat separately. Until that format is published in full, the three HSKK levels on this page are the speaking exam candidates actually sit — see the HSK 3.0 status page for what has changed.

The three HSKK levels compared

How the HSKK is scored — and how we score your practice

In the real exam, trained raters listen to your recording and judge whether you did what each question asked, how accurate and varied your Chinese is, and how fluent and clear it sounds. CTI publishes the 100-point total and the 60-point pass mark, not a weight for each part, so no practice site can tell you exactly how many points one answer is worth.

Here, each answer gets its own score out of 100. Repeating a sentence and reading aloud are measured, not judged: we transcribe your recording and count how much of the text came back in order, and how smoothly. Everything else — answering a question, describing a picture, retelling a passage — is read by an AI examiner told the level, the task and the time you had, which scores the task and the language; fluency is measured from the pauses in your audio.

Your recording is transcribed and then thrown away. It is never stored.

How to prepare for the HSKK

Most candidates lose points in the same three places: they stop talking long before the time is up, they freeze on a repeat sentence they half-heard, and they answer a question with a list of words instead of sentences. All three improve with timed practice out loud — not with more reading.

• Repeat sentences in chunks: hear the meaning first, then the words. If one word escapes you, say the rest — a partial sentence still scores.
• Fill the time on the developed questions. Plan three points before you speak: an opening answer, a reason or an example, a closing sentence.
• Use the words you are sure of. At every level the examiners reward clear, correct Chinese over ambitious Chinese that breaks down.
• Record yourself and listen back once a day. The gaps you hear are the ones the examiner hears.

HSKK questions