These were harder. 9/15, mostly thanks to not having a strong enough grasp on the differences between close synonyms. Keep these coming, I need them if I'm going to take the HSK advanced next year.

@johnb&henning,

很高兴你们二位都喜欢我们的高级题：）

高级HSK的难点在于考点已经不再集中到你是否了解这门语言，更多的是考查你能不能真正熟练地掌握这门语言，所以题量大、时间短，而且就像henning说的情况，中国人也会错，因为虽然绝大多数中国人都能讲一口流利的中文，但是能准确熟练地理解或者应用正式文体（例如新闻、文学作品）的人并不是大多数，就像作家、记者、编辑、中文教师等职业工作者，都是需要经过数年的专业培训和积累才能达到一定的语言功力的。如果留心，你会发现，有很多人在日常生活中使用母语时其实经常出现错误，一些可能会产生歧义的成语连电台播音时也会出错。高级HSK题有一些是“没有错误的选项，只有最好的选项”，所以汉语学习者到达高级阶段以后学习的重点也就自然地转移到了如何掌握一门“漂亮”的语言上来，不只是“说一口流利的”普通话，更是掌握“让中国人都羡慕的”中文，才是高阶段学习者的目标。

不知道johnb和henning你们都错了哪些题？觉得这次的题有什么难点？不妨和大家分享一下？

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com

@imron,

13/15? Well done!:)

Actually 塑造 emphasizes using words or art describe a person or a thing. We usually say 塑造（什么样的）形象。

On Question 11, you can fill either 睡眠 or 睡梦. They both mean sleeping. 睡眠 is more formal though. You'll see 睡梦 combining with 中 in many writing works, esp. in literary works.例如：我从睡梦中醒来，发现他站在我的床前。

Here are some combination examples of 障碍. 睡眠障碍；心理障碍；生理障碍；听力障碍；语言障碍.

13/15, with 4 and 14 wrong. (Those lucky number 4's, I guess.) In retrospect my choice for 14 was probably a dumb one, though 必须要 for the second answer seems redundant to me. (I've heard it in speech, but still.)

For 4, I'm guessing that it's the answer for the third blank that really makes the difference there - 心态 versus 心情? Do 无一幸免 and 一向 sound OK for the first two?

For 4, I'm guessing that it's the answer for the third blank that really makes the difference there - 心态

That's definitely what triggered it for me. I wasn't too familiar with 在所难免 or 一味, but was fairly certain that the third blank should be 心态.

Echo,

feedback from my side does not make much sense at this level - too much noise from unknown vocab. But I will be happy to share my upcoming Elementary & Intermediate adventures.

travelyan,

now that will be a long countdown considering that she knows tose 300 Tang poems by heart, won some Chengyu competition in High School, read HongLouMeng the first time in Elementry school, etc. etc. Those errors are much rather a consequence of >15 years in Germany...

@strongenglish - maybe not tears, but a short stint at Tsinghua actually *did* lead me to drive my fist into a concrete wall at one point. Nice campus, but the helpful advice I got from an instructor was being told "they're just wrong" after asking how I was getting a particular tone wrong and how to fix it.

On the HSK front, the size of the learning communities are quite different (chinese learners are obviously a fraction of a fraction of English learners), but the HSK is the leading standardized test for mandarin in the mainland at this point, and is required for university admission as well as increasingly by conglomerates operating in the mainland. AP just launched a competing test earlier this year in the States, though, so things could change. There's a lot of bureaucratic infighting over the administration of the test between its government sponsors and that tends to stand in the way of things getting done effectively. Right now two different organizations are technically tasked with administering the HSK for Chinese and non-Chinese native speakers respectively and tend to battle it out over who has the authority to do specific things with the test.

@henning - don't let your wife pull the wool over your eyes with her emotional claims! We are talking about established and unbiased methods for measuring fluency! At the very least, when this fateful day does come, you should enroll her in one of our remedial courses! ;)

@travelyan -- The shame, the shame! Will go 挖个洞 and crawl inside now.

@imron -- Yeah, I think 心态 probably makes that answer. Oh well -- that's what I get for not looking more closely. And yes, I would be interested to hear which ones henning's wife got wrong too. May see if I can talk Li into taking this for comparative purposes: she's extremely well-read, but hates using official-speak, so I think she might actually get a couple of these wrong.

5/15 - almost close to statistical guesswork. It makes me feel much better to know native speakers find this challenging too.

@imron,

It would be easier and clearer if you try to remember 在所难免 and 无一幸免 together. As what i replied to Brendan, 无一幸免 have to be used in past tense, so it's more like something bad has already happened. 在所难免 more emphasize something is inevasible, and tense here doesn't really matter.

Same way works on 一味 and 一向 (I mean you can try to remember them together). "一味"暗示了我们这个句子中“一味”后面的动词是不好的，是一种不好的行为，是作者觉得不对的。一向是指某些情况一直是这样。

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com

回声老师,

谢谢你的鼓励。还好我是为了乐趣而学系的， 不是为了工作。 是我的爱好而已。 之所以我肯定不会放弃。 :)

great suggestions sprungturnip - we're expecting to remain in beta for the next week or so, and will try to get a lot of these small improvements taken care of. Challenge is adding features without adding too much complexity. :)