GAPSK tests Putonghua from kindergarten through secondary school. Written and oral papers, graded certificates, and testing that comes to the campus — run by the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Putonghua Promotion Association since 2004.
HSK and YCT test Chinese as a second language. GAPSK is different: it tests Putonghua for students in Hong Kong and Macau, where Cantonese is the mother tongue and Putonghua is the second spoken standard.
The test is designed around where Hong Kong and Macau students actually struggle — tones, pinyin, and the sounds Cantonese does not distinguish — rather than treating them as beginners in Chinese.
GAPSK measures the standard a student has reached in using Putonghua, rather than testing whether they have covered a particular school syllabus.
Supported by the Education Bureau of the HKSAR, the Ministry of Education of the PRC, and the State Language Commission. Certificates are issued with Peking University’s Institute of Chinese Language Education.
Kindergarten runs as a relaxed one-to-one game. Primary and secondary combine a written and an oral paper. The oral paper can also be sat on its own, online.
| Test | Who it is for | What it covers | Length | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kindergarten · Elementary | Kindergarten | Listening and speaking, played as a game with one examiner | 8 min | HK$600 |
| Kindergarten · Intermediate | Kindergarten | Listening, speaking and reading, including a self-introduction | 10 min | HK$600 |
| Kindergarten · Advanced | Kindergarten | As Intermediate, with sentence recitation. Requires a pass at a lower level first | 10 min | HK$600 |
| Primary · Elementary / Intermediate / Advanced | P1–2 / P3–4 / P5–6 | Written and oral on the same day: listening, pinyin, character writing, reading, plus one-to-one speaking | Same day | HK$600 |
| Secondary | S1–3 | Written and oral on the same day, at secondary level | Same day | HK$600 |
| Oral only, online | P1–2 to S1–3 | Speaking assessed on its own through the GAPSK online platform | 15–20 min | HK$430 |
Results are reported on an eight-band scale rather than a single mark, so a certificate says something more useful than pass or fail. A score of 60 or above earns a certificate.
The association has built a wider programme around Putonghua teaching in Hong Kong and Macau schools.
Written and oral sittings run at your own school, scheduled around the school calendar.
Territory-wide speech, poetry and nursery-rhyme competitions, plus a Hong Kong-Macau showcase.
Certification courses for examination teaching, testing, and recitation judging.
GAPSK is also a test centre for HSK, HSKK, YCT, OCT and the CTCSOL teaching certificate.
Test dates, syllabuses, past papers, competitions, teacher courses and school bookings all live on gapsk.org, with registration at apply.gapsk.org. This page is an introduction — the site is where you book.