HSK 7–9 Vocabulary

What’s on HSK 7–9

The syllabus describes HSK 7–9 in three settings: daily and social life, work and careers, and school and academic study. In each one you’re expected to understand, to express yourself, and to translate into Chinese.

The tasks run from reading a complicated personal letter to drafting documents, carrying out market research, and writing lab and internship reports.

Some entries will look familiar. In 24 of them a word from a lower level comes back with a new reading or meaning. 圈 is quān at HSK 6 and juàn here, for an animal pen.

Words and characters

The exam

It’s one sitting for all three levels. Your score report says whether you reached Level 7, 8 or 9, or finished below Level 7. The table follows the current official sample paper. The official HSK 7–9 web page still gives the earlier figures of 98 questions and about 210 minutes.

Handwriting or typing

HSK 7–9 is internet-based only, at a test center, so you type with pinyin and choose the right characters on screen. The syllabus still lists 1,200 characters to write by hand, so they’re worth learning if you’ll need to write Chinese outside the exam.

Words and characters come from the Syllabus for the Chinese Proficiency Test (November 2025). The exam format comes from the official HSK 3.0 sample papers.