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HSK 4 Reading Comprehension Structure

  • 3 exercises (40 questions).
  • 40 minutes to answer the questions (you will write down the answer on the answer sheet straight away).
  • All the sentences are written in Chinese characters only.
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HSK 4 – Reading Comprehension – Exercise 1

Exercise 1 contains 10 questions.

5 fill-in sentences and 5 words will be displayed on your exam sheet. You need to fill in each sentence with a word from 5 choices.

Unlike level 2 or level 3, the missing words are only written in Chinese characters (no more Pinyin).

Example :

Missing words:

HSK 4 reading Example

Fill-in sentences (on the answer sheet, you need to write the letter that corresponds to the missing word):

HSK 4 reading

Answers: 46. A    47. D    48. E    49. C    50. B

Tip: The missing words are usually nouns, verbs or adjectives. Identify the type of word that is missing in each sentence (e.g. a verb). You can then see which is the right word depending on the meaning of the sentence and the different answer choices.

This exercise is simple but do take your time to choose the right words to avoid careless mistakes.

HSK 4 – Reading Comprehension – Exercise 2

Exercise 2 is made up of 10 questions.

Each question contains 3 sentences. You need to put them in the right order to form a coherent paragraph.

Example : 

HSK reading Reading Comprehension

Tip: Identify connecting words— e.g. “but”, “then”, “therefore”, etc. — to form a logical text… And work on your grammar!

HSK 4 – Reading Comprehension – Exercise 3

Exercise 3 is made up of 20 questions.

Each question contains a short paragraph (1 to 3 sentences). A question will follow each paragraph. You need to choose the right answer from 4 choices.

HSK reading

Answer: B.

Tip: The right answer usually paraphrases a part of the paragraph. You therefore need to check if there are any synonyms of the words from the paragraph in the answer choices. That way, you can find the right answer without necessarily knowing all the words.

Although the last texts of the exercise are longer, the questions are not necessarily harder.

Get prepared with HSK training and get more information about the HSK level 4, the writing section and the listening comprehension.