If you don’t know or are not familiar with the HSK, it is the Chinese proficiency test used to see how much of Chinese does a non-native speaker knows (by memory). Why do people take the HSK? Maybe to see their progress, but many others have to take it as a requirements for their schools back home or to get a job in China and also if someone wants to study at a school in China where the study is in Chinese. There may be other reasons people take the HSK, but this is all that I know so far.
The HSK examinations are divided into 6 levels from 1 being easy to 6 being hard (even for native Chinese speakers). I don’t need to take the test, but I would like to just to see where I am in the language. And from what people told me, since I am a beginner, by the end of the year, I should be able to pass up to level 4 (which to me is crazy) but I guess doable. This week, one of my teachers gave me an excel sheet of the HSK vocabulary for each level. In order to pass level 6, you need to know around 5,000 characters, which I find insane. I can barely remember the 500+ we have learned in the first text book. But I guess with practice, everything will become much easier.