HSK 3 reading practice
Every passage here is written inside HSK 3 — the grammar and the vocabulary stay in the level, so you read rather than decode. Shortest first.
The App That Knows My Taste手机怎么知道我喜欢什么Two friends notice their phones recommend exactly what they like, and disagree about whether an algorithm doing that is convenient or unsettling. One…HSK 3 · 255 characters · 3 min · tech
Five Carts of Books学富五车A student says her history teacher has read so much that people call him "five carts of books" learned, and her friend asks why being learned gets mea…HSK 3 · 326 characters · 4 min · history
Where You Study Best在哪儿学习最好A student always studies at a busy coffee shop and says the background noise actually helps her focus; her roommate needs total silence in the library…HSK 3 · 327 characters · 4 min · daily
Working from Home在家上班Two colleagues who used to sit near each other compare working from home with going to the office. One switched to working from home last month and li…HSK 3 · 339 characters · 4 min · current-events
The Message I Sent by Mistake发错了消息A woman sends a message complaining about her boss, but her phone sends it straight to the boss instead of to her friend. She calls her friend in a pa…HSK 3 · 340 characters · 4 min · tech
Learning to Cook My Mother's Dish学妈妈做的菜A daughter calls her mother to learn how to make the dish her mother always cooks. She wants an exact amount for the salt, but her mother can only eve…HSK 3 · 350 characters · 4 min · daily
Why Do You Ask My Age为什么问我的年龄A foreign student is asked her age, her salary and whether she is married within minutes of meeting a new coworker, and feels the questions are much t…HSK 3 · 351 characters · 4 min · culture
Reading a Novel in Chinese第一次读中文小说A learner tells a friend about finishing her first Chinese novel. At the start she looked up almost every word and it was slow and no fun at all. Part…HSK 3 · 388 characters · 4 min · literature
The Fight for the Bill抢着付钱Dinner ends and two Chinese friends, Zhang Wei and Wang Fang, fight over who gets to pay, the way they do every time. Their American friend David trie…HSK 3 · 393 characters · 4 min · culture
The Canal Still at Work还在用的运河A boat guide tells a tourist that the calm water beneath them is not a river but a canal, dug by hand over many years long ago to carry rice from the…HSK 3 · 413 characters · 5 min · history
The Bike Share Problem共享单车放在哪里Shared bikes are everywhere in Chinese cities: cheap, convenient, and very often lying across the pavement. A resident finds her building's pavement b…HSK 3 · 418 characters · 5 min · current-events
Chopsticks Have Rules筷子的规矩At a family dinner a foreign guest sticks his chopsticks upright in his rice and the table goes quiet. His friend quietly lays them flat and only expl…HSK 3 · 431 characters · 5 min · culture
The Lunch Nap午睡的习惯A new employee is startled when the office goes dark and silent right after lunch. A colleague explains that everyone naps, a habit that goes back to…HSK 3 · 438 characters · 5 min · daily
Breakfast on the Street街上的早饭Xiao Mei has bought her breakfast jianbing from the same street cart for about two hundred mornings, so the vendor starts her order before she says a…HSK 3 · 449 characters · 5 min · food
Everyone Goes Home过年，大家都回家A Chinese colleague spends her lunch break refreshing a ticket app, anxious about getting home for Spring Festival. She explains to her foreign cowork…HSK 3 · 457 characters · 5 min · culture
The Translation App Got It Wrong翻译软件翻错了Tom used a translation app to order from a menu by himself and got scared when the app translated a dish name literally into something with ants in it…HSK 3 · 466 characters · 5 min · tech
Electric Cars Are Quiet电动车太安静了Two neighbours watch an electric car glide past without a sound and get into a friendly argument about it. Electric cars are cheaper to run and make t…HSK 3 · 468 characters · 5 min · current-events
The City That Grew变大的城市While cleaning, a grandfather finds a photograph of the city taken thirty years ago and shows it to his grandson, who cannot even recognize the place…HSK 3 · 489 characters · 5 min · history
The Terracotta Army西安的兵马俑A woman just back from Xi'an tells her brother about the Terracotta Army: in 1974 farmers digging a well found the first figure, and now thousands of…HSK 3 · 512 characters · 6 min · history
The Empty Boat空船A cyclist arrives furious after nearly crashing into a child on a runaway bike, his anger vanishing the moment he sees who it is. His friend connects…HSK 3 · 514 characters · 6 min · philosophy
Pulling Up the Sprouts拔苗的农民A learner studying Chinese characters burns out after three days of five-hour sessions and wants to quit entirely. Her friend tells her Mencius's stor…HSK 3 · 548 characters · 6 min · philosophy
Why We Write Characters by Hand为什么还要手写汉字A student who does all his homework by typing asks his teacher whether handwriting still matters. The teacher argues that writing a character by hand…HSK 3 · 550 characters · 6 min · literature
The Old Man and the Horse老人和马A granddaughter is upset about a bad exam grade and calls it bad luck. Her grandfather tells her the old story of a man whose horse runs away, comes b…HSK 3 · 621 characters · 7 min · philosophyThese readings are one step of a course that moves. GraphChinese teaches HSK 0 through HSK 6 on a mastery-gated knowledge graph: the reading arrives when the words in it are ones you have already met, and spaced review brings them back just before you would forget. One payment of $49, lifetime access.
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