# Forum Other Languages All other languages Chinese  O/A-levels + HSK exams

## Jasper May

你们好!
I'd like to know how many characters you have to know before you can do the Chinese O/A-levels in Britain. The reason I'm asking is because for the first time ever, a Dutch secondary school is offering the opportunity to do Chinese. There aren't any official exams yet, so they are planning on using the British O-level exams as the official Dutch one as well, at least until the Dutch one has been produced. 
Please, answer! 
Jasper

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## waxwing

Britain hasn't had O-levels since I was a kiddie .. 1988 or something. Don't you mean GCSEs?

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## Jasper May

Beh, of course.   ::  My father did do O/A-levels, and I don't know any British children, so... But of course I mean GCSE.

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## Jasper May

Gah, never mind. This forum is dead, and I've found the answer anyway ( http://www.asu.edu/educ/epsl/LPRU/newsa ... Art501.txt )   

> GCSE students, who previously had to learn *900* characters, will have to master only *600* under new guidelines agreed this year.

 So I'm halfway! Wahey!  ::

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## Jasper May

For those interested, i.e. me, here are some exams and word-lists for the HSK (hanyu shuiping kaoshi):  http://www.unige.ch/lettres/meslo/chinois/hsk.html http://hsk.org.cn/Common/moni.asp 
And an extremely interesting article, though badly translated: http://people.netscape.com/ftang/chines ... inese.html

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## Roderick_Glossop

This site offers a free self-test for Chinese character recognition:-  http://www.clavisinica.com/fs-views.html

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