When an attacker comes at you with a knife, the instinctive response is flight. This is the correct reaction, save in close quarters where you should put something between yourself and the blade. Should an attacker come at you brandishing the HSK however, the instinctive response is of considerable less use. Simply ignoring the test while focusing on your assailant can cause significant damage to one's GPA and career prospects. Only those with significant training are typically able to outperform on the test while also debilitating their attacker.

Bearing this in mind, we recommend all students of martial arts incorporate HSK test preparation into their training regime. In the spirit of getting you past the white belt, we are happy to present these fifteen fill-in-the-blank exercises. May you never have to use them in a life-threatening situation.
 said on
January 13, 2010
I'm fascinated by subject deletion in Chinese, especially since there are no inflected verbs to specify who is doing what.

In 13,

我们今天比赛了,而且赢了。

can a native speaker confirm that

我们今天比赛了,而且我们赢了。

sounds awkward,or is it OK (but not necessary) to have the second 我们? To me, it seems that this sentence is almost a little ambiguous without the second 我们 because obviously someone has to win the match.
 said on
January 13, 2010
@toneandcolor - I'm not a native speaker, but the first (subject omission) feels more natural to me. Be curious to hear the answer to this from the team as well.
 said on
January 14, 2010
@toneandcolor,

Good question!

If we have two single sentences make up one complex sentence,and their subjects are the same, we usually just keep one. You can choose whether you want to put it in the firt part or the second part.

e.g.

我们今天比赛了,而且赢了。

今天比赛了,而且我们赢了。

We took part in the competition and won.

虽然他特别喜欢滑冰,但今天没去。

虽然特别喜欢滑冰,但他今天没去。

Although he likes skating very much, he didn't went there.

尽管他感冒了,但还是陪我们去了公园。

尽管感冒了,但他还是陪我们去了公园。

Although he had a cold, he still went to the park with us.

即使我病了,也要继续工作。

即使病了,我也要继续工作。

Even when I get sick, I will continue working.

all these sentences are correct.

加油!

gail@popupchinese.com
 said on
January 14, 2010
@Gail

天堂的声音听起来真不错!谢谢你的解释。

Mark Lesson Studied