I am OK on listening, reading and writing, but the advanced grammar section on the exam has had Chinese friends of mine shaking their heads and saying "we never use these words". If anyone knows of a website or book that focuses on this stuff, I'd be glad to know.

You seem like an old hand, so you might have seen this already, but there was a recent post on Hacking Chinese that may have some useful pointers for you: www.hackingchinese.com/asking-the-experts-how-to-learn-chinese-grammar/ (As a new user, I can't yet post proper links.)

Sam W, I am impressed that you are on that level! Wow.

+1 ......yeah me too....hugely impressive! Where and how did u learn?

Did you pass the other HSK tests? What tests have you already passed?

Don't be too impressed, it's taken three years ! It should be have been less, but I got lost down various dead ends. I did HSK 3 years ago and got 90% and then went on to HSK 5, which I failed by a narrow margin. I spent a lot of time on characters at the start, which was a good move. I like those books that turn the characters into a story based on the radicals, like Matthews and the Heisig book. After that, I foolishly tried to do too much grammar at once, there's no point, it won't stick, and a lot of the advanced stuff hardly comes up, even at HSK 6. Best to just watch a lot of TV and talk to people and read those kiddie books you get in the bookshop, especially the parallel texts. Good luck !

What do you think about Pleco? I downloaded the vocab flashcards for hsk 1-6 (5000 words total) and am working my way through this. It's so useful because each word entry have several example sentences so you can learn how to use the word. But the problem is that a lot of the sentences are quite old-fashioned or out of use. And stangely a lot seem to be taken from old communist literature, so you have sentences like "this cadre's understanding of Marxist ideology is sound", "rally round the party" and similar shit. So i was wondering whether there's another dictionary which also has example sentences but of a more contemporary and useful nature.

Well I like Pleco as well Chris8080, but I swear by the Oxford Advanced Learner's English Chinese Dictionary. I found it for free on my pc using Startdict, and also on my android using Zanttek dictionary. On Apple you have to pay, and also if you buy it through Pleco. It has no pinyin unfortunately, but I just share it from the zanttek dictionary to pleco reader to get the pinyin of the characters that I don't know.

I know this is completely of the original topic, but may help others who are looking to study Chinese.

Good luck for your HSK 6 prep Sam W.

Is there an HSK 4? You passed 3 but failed 5. So how about taking 4? I do not understand why you will take 6 if you previously failed 5.

I sure hope there is a level 4 cos I will be taking it in a couple of months. I skipped level 1 and level 3 myself. U dont have to do them in sequence.