Why is there so much emphasis on test scores ? | EP Perspective

I don't know! 

This is a question I keep asking myself over and over, without being able to come up with a reasonable explanation, as scores aren't a very good reflection of one's real abilities, especially when it comes to language skills. However, having organized a considerable number of cross-cultural, bilingual (CH-EN) events in the past two years, I came across many people chasing high scores in their English language tests. And please don't get me wrong! Although high scores are important to be accepted in universities abroad, I also think that there is too much emphasis on the test itself and not on the content, nor the learning journey. In this article I will explain why I think that.

Because exams in themselves represent a lot of stress for many people, they might panic during the exam which might negatively influence their scores. Some memorize everything in order to get a high score, but forget everything as soon as the test was passed, which means that they can't make more use of the knowledge. What's more, the stress accumulated during the exam period will make many people associate language learning with stress. In the long-term, this will make language learning something undesirable.

So what about my experience with tests?

Many people already know that I became fluent in Chinese in less than 5 years of language learning. I also have two test scores HSK 5: 213/300 (after 3 years of studying Chinese) and HSK 6: 210/300 (after two more years) to support my level of Chinese. 

But what do these scores really say about my level of Chinese?

Well, there is certain background information that I need to give before answering this question.

1、The difficulty of each Level

In order to show their Chinese proficiency, foreigners have the option to take the HSK test, from Level 1 - the lowest, to Level 6 - the highest proficiency. To have an idea of what it means, having passed HSK 6 a foreigner can be admitted to study a PhD in Chinese language.

Strictly comparing the two scores, one would tend to think that there is no considerable improvement in my Chinese skills. But considering the increased difficulty of the HSK 6 exam, it is actually quite difficult to assess how much my level has actually improved.

2、The structure of the test

Now let's take a closer look at the structure of the test: Listening, Reading and Writing, with a maximum of 100 points each.

HSK 5

HSK 6

Comparing the two, does that mean that my listening skills in Chinese have worsened, but suddenly my writing skills have become better?

Well, not really~

So what happened then?

Let's take a closer look. The HSK 5 exam was a paper exam, thus during the Listening part I could see all the questions while listening and already knew the answer by the time I would finish listening to each question. The HSK 6 exam, however, was a Computer-based one. The questions for the Listening section were given one by one, each one with a very limited amount of time, testing not only my listening skills, but also my reading speed which has not really improved over the years. Therefore, by the time I was able to fully read the question and answer, the next question would come up (so I actually think I got some answers correctly out of pure luck!).

As for my writing skills, in a paper based exam you need to handwrite the characters, whereas in a Computer-based exam you can type. I never practiced Chinese characters handwriting, so handwriting is definitely not an option for me. The fact that I got 50 for the Writing part in the HSK 5 exam is already a miracle. But give me a keyboard to type and Chinese writing （typing）is suddenly not a problem anymore. 

So what does that say about my Chinese skills? 

Hard to say, really!

3、Preparation for the exam

If I didn't manage to convince that focusing on the test itself is not the best way to go forward, how about mentioning that I passed the HSK 6 without previous preparation?

Yeap! Yeap! Yeap!

When I tested for HSK 5, I was still studying Chinese at Qingdao University, so I prepared quite intensively for the test. However, like the Toefl/IELTS exams, Chinese test scores are also valid for only 2 years, so when my HSK 5 score expired, I decided to test for HSK 6 to see whether there is some improvement in my language skills. Said and done, when I registered for the HSK 6 test, I had all the good intentions to prepare for it. I even bought a book to help me study. However, being extremely busy at work, I only managed to do one test from that book (on paper, not on the computer). As such, as the exam date got closer, I panicked and wanted to postpone the exam, but it was already too late. According to the exam rules, if I would have cancelled, I would have lost the money. With the money being lost anyway, I decided to take the exam. Needless to say how surprised I was about the result, being convinced that I would fail it for sure.

So, this got me thinking about the whole matter and it led me to two conclusions:

1. even though grades do matter in many situations (e.g. college entrance examination), it is more important to focus on the knowledge rather than how to score high. If you have the knowledge, then you can be confident that you will also score high on any test.

2. even though I haven't prepared specifically for the HSK 6 test itself, in the past two years I haven't given up on my Chinese study. This allowed me to pass the test with a good grade even if I hadn't prepared specifically for the test. 

As such, I can only conclude that if you are passionate about what you do and focus on the knowledge, then you don't need to worry about any test. You will also get a good score without so much stress for exams.

If you have any comments about this article, feel free to leave your comments at the bottom.