updated on April 26, 2021
In May 2020 it was announced that the HSK Mandarin proficiency exam would be revised to include three more advanced levels of certification beyond the current six. An increased number of foreign students pursuing graduate degrees in China was cited as a reason, but the current HSK has consistently been criticized for failing to be as comprehensive as other language exams. This forthcoming iteration has been dubbed the “HSK 3.0”, a name meant to reflect that it’s the third generation of the exam (although some students have understandably confused it with the current HSK 三级).
In March 2021 the Chinese Ministry of Education published a set of Mandarin proficiency standards that the new exam is meant to assess. It is still unknown how certain aspects of these standards (such as new handwriting requirements) will be reflected in the HSK 3.0 because practice exams haven’t been published yet, but the new standards did include finalized vocabulary lists for each of the testing levels.
The current HSK vocabulary list only contains 5,000 words, an amount widely acknowledged to be inadequate for actual Mandarin proficiency. The new HSK 3.0 vocabulary list has been expanded to total of 11,092 words. The histograms above show how vocabulary for the different HSK levels will be expanded and redistributed.
On April 22 CTI published a short article explaining the timeline for the new HSK 3.0 roll-out. The new HSK 7-9级 will be trialed later this year and implemented March 2022. The current HSK 1-6 will remain unchanged for the next 3-5 years, but it will eventually be modified to reflect the new proficiency standards on a country-by-country basis.
The best strategy for vocabulary acquisition is to use the right tools and apply a slow-and-steady approach. To give you a head start on the long process of learning all these words I have spent more than 500 hours writing and assembling flashcards for all words on the current and new vocabulary lists.