What does the HSK Level Mean?

It never occurred to me what HSK actually meant. I saw it all the time and eventually figured out that it just meant the level of difficulty. But today I decided to find what the acronym stood for as many of the words I am finding online to study are often HSK Level 1 or 2, which translates to the most basic levels. However, I am ready to move beyond Level 1 and 2.

HSK stands for: Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi 漢語水平考試.  Its literal translation means: Chinese Proficiency Test. According to Wikipedia, it is the equivalent to the English TOEFL test. This is China's standardized test for non-native speakers (foreign students, overseas Chinese, and ethnic minority Chinese).
You can read more about it here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanyu_Shuiping_Kaoshi

Here's a website with test information, vocabulary, and practice tests for each level as well. There is also an audio portion in the test. The materials on this site include the pdf practice test and mp3 audio files. This is definitely good test prep!
http://www.chinaeducenter.com/en/exams.php

In the US, if you want to become authorized to teach Mandarin or any other foreign language, you will need to pass the CSET. It's probably not as intense as the HSK, but it is still difficult. Trust me! You basically need to show that you can read, write, speak, and understand (listening) Chinese... But I'll cover the CSET stuff in another post.

On my quest to find more ways to study a few Chinese vocabulary words a day, I found a Chinese vocabulary web feeder that puts up 10 Chinese vocabulary words a day with the definition. If you have gmail (which most people do I think), you can add it to your Google Reader and just check it daily. It also has the previous days vocabulary words. I'm not sure how far it goes back, but so far it seems to go back to the first day I subscribed. **What's also great is that you can pick the HSK Level words that you want. If you only want level 3, you can get that. If you want ALL 6 levels, you can get that too. I chose all 6 levels and every day I get words from various levels.

This is the site with instructions the explanation of the web feed and how to use it.:
http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=feedhowto

This is the site if you would like to receive the "10 Chinese words per day web feed". I think I already have 100+ words on my Google Reader! A lot of the words are actually new to me since I have been studying the easier words. But lately I've been getting a lot of HSK Level 5 & 6 words. Hmmm. I wonder if I should just do one or two levels at a time. What do you think?
http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php?page=feeds