The Test of Chinese as a Foreign Language (formerly known as the Test Of Proficiency-Huayu or TOP) is the Republic of China

Republic of China

The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...

's (Taiwan

Taiwan

Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

's) Mandarin Chinese test. It is administered by the Steering Committee for the Test Of Proficiency-Huayu (SC-TOP) . The committee is under the direction of the Ministry of Education

Ministry of Education (Republic of China)

The Ministry of Education of the Republic of China is responsible for incorporating educational policies and managing public schools throughout the Free Area of the Republic of China. The ministry is a cabinet level governmental body of the Executive Yuan...

.

Introduction

The Steering Committee for the Test Of Proficiency-Huayu (SC-TOP) was established in November 2005 under the direction of the Ministry of Education of R.O.C. Originally called the Chinese Language Testing Center and renamed in January, 2007, the Committee aims to develop and promote an effective Chinese assessment system, mainly the Test of Proficiency-Huayu (TOP), for Chinese learners worldwide to assess their Chinese proficiency.

The SC-TOP has the following major missions:

• To design and plan the test contents of TOP
• To build test item pools for TOP
• To develop computer-based Chinese proficiency test systems
• To promote Taiwan’s Chinese proficiency tests for nonnative speakers of Chinese
• To increase exchange among Chinese proficiency test organizations worldwide

Test Level

TOP test results are compared here with the HSK offered in China. As shown on the figure, Level 1 in TOP is comparable to Level 4 in HSK.

Vocabulary Lists

The TOP also provide vocabulary lists :

• 基礎 / 基础, jīchǔ: List of Words: Beginners.pdf (800)
• 初等, chūděng: List of Words: Basic.pdf (~1.600)
• 中等, zhōngděng: List of Words: Intermediate.pdf (~3.400)
• 高等, gāoděng: List of Words: Advanced.pdf (~2.800)

The set make about 8.000 words.

External links

• Steering Committee for the Test Of Proficiency-Huayu