HSK 4 reading

Required proof of Chinese for admission, graduation and scholarships in China. Scores are valid for two years.

Official exam page

This exam is mid-change

HSK is mid-reform and the reform is unresolved. The nine-level GF0025-2021 standard governs, and HSK 7–9 is live: 98 questions across five skills including translation, about 210 minutes, internet-based only. But HSK 1–6 as sold and sat today is still the legacy six-level format — the per-level pages describe it and it is what you will sit. A 3.0 syllabus, competency profile and sample papers for levels 1–6 are published, and the awarding body has announced a SECOND round of global trial ("试行") testing, the first sitting having been 31 January 2026. No cutover date for levels 1–6 has been announced. Anyone telling you HSK "has moved to 3.0", or that it "has not been reformed", is wrong in one direction or the other.

HSK 4 is the level most often asked for as a first serious proof of Chinese. Two things about it are true at the same time, and most preparation pages tell you only one: the exam you will actually sit is the legacy six-level format, and the reform is real and under way.

The reading section

Reading time
not published
Scored reading items
not published
Texts or passages
not published
Approximate words
not published
CEFR level
no official CEFR mapping
Published annual volume
not published — no annual figure exists from the awarding body
Awarding body
CTI Co., Ltd. (汉考国际 / Chinese Testing International), with the Center for Language Education and Cooperation (CLEC), MOE

What that means in practice

The exam is 100 items across Listening, Reading and Writing in about 105 minutes (including 5 minutes of admin), total 300 points, pass 180. The per-section reading item count and reading-specific minutes are not stated on the official page — its structure table renders client-side and did not extract — so no reading figures are given here. Reading is one of three reported scores.

Every figure on this page was checked against the awarding body on that date. Exam formats change; check the official page before you book.

How well reading practice fits this exam

A full reading section

Reading is a complete, separately scored section with real passages. Training it moves a number that appears on your result.

LingoRead trains reading. It does not prepare a speaking or writing paper, it does not mark free-text answers, and it does not issue or predict an official result.

Practise reading for this exam

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What the awarding body publishes for this level

The official page gives the whole-exam item count, the approximate total duration including administration, the points total and the pass mark, and all of those are printed on this page with their source. What it does not give in retrievable form is the reading item count or a reading-only duration — its structure table renders client-side and did not extract during research. So this page says "not published" for those rather than repeating a figure from a study blog.

What is certain is that reading is one of three separately reported scores in the total. Whatever the exact item count, a weak reading result is directly visible on your certificate — it is not absorbed into a single number.

The reform, stated without spin

The nine-level national standard governs and HSK 7–9 has been live for years. At the same time, levels 1–6 as sold and sat today are described by the official per-level pages in the legacy format, 3.0 material for those levels is published, and the awarding body has announced further rounds of global trial testing. No cutover date for levels 1–6 has been announced.

The practical consequence for you is simple: prepare for the format described on the official page for your sitting, check that page again close to your test date, and treat any site that speaks confidently in either direction as unreliable on everything else too.

Reading practice while the format settles

One thing does not depend on the reform: reading Chinese faster and understanding more of it is useful under any format. Daily short passages at your level, with tap-to-translate and comprehension questions afterwards, build character recognition in context rather than as isolated flashcards — which is what carries over when the paper changes.

LingoRead trains reading. It does not prepare listening or writing, it does not simulate HSK item formats, and it cannot tell you which format you will sit. HSK scores are also valid for two years, so plan the sitting against the deadline that actually matters to you.

Questions people ask

Free tools that help

Our four free tools are English-only for now, so there is no matching tool for this exam. They are still worth a look if you also read in English.

See the free tools

Other levels of HSK

No dedicated page — the research did not show enough search demand for it.

HSK 4 reading: what is published, and what is mid-reform | LingoRead