Are HSK6 questions 51 through 60 (语病) so difficult that it's reasonable to just guess?

Question

Among the HSK6 advice I've encountered, I'm a bit surprised by some practical advice regarding the ten 语病 questions (51 through 60) wherein each question has 4 sentences A through D and exactly one sentence contains some kind of error.

My teacher in Beijing confessed to us that this part is hard even for native Chinese speakers ...for us muggles, the best strategy will be to simply GUESS IT. My strategy here, again, is b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b.

The idea is to guess, and thereby save precious time for the remaining parts. I checked some past exams, and indeed most answers are B or C (then most likely D, and seldom A), so this strategy will likely result in 2 to 4 correct (out of 10) on this component.

I'd like to verify whether this part is as difficult as claimed.

Question: Are HSK6 questions 51 through 60 (语病) so difficult that it's reasonable to just guess?

There are 50 questions in the reading 阅读 section, and 50 minutes to answer them. So there's basically 1 minute per question. For concreteness, from this past HSK6 exam, we have these questions:

第51-60题：请选出有语病的一项。

51. • A 笑声如阳光，能驱走人们脸上的冬天。
    • B 保持年轻的之一秘诀是拥有健康的心态。
    • C 网站正在维护中，如有不便，敬请谅解。
    • D 世上没有令人绝望的处境，只有对处境绝望的人。
52. • A 四川省计划今年新增三条国际直飞航线。
    • B 春天来了，到处是呈现出一片生机勃勃的景象。
    • C 您好，您拨打的电话正在通话中，请稍后再拨。
    • D 专家建议，两岁以下的儿童尽量不要接触电子产品。
53. • A 火龙果热量低、纤维高，深受减肥人士的喜爱。
    • B 竹楼是傣族传统的建筑形式，有利于防酷热和湿气。
    • C 时间如同一位慈母，可以帮助我们抚平心灵的创伤。
    • D 通过载人航天技术的发展水平，体现了一个国家的综合实力。
54. • A 生长在野外的长尾鸡，尾羽每年能增长一米左右。
    • B 任何每一个障碍，都有可能成为一个超越自我的契机。
    • C 西溪湿地距离杭州西湖5公里，是罕见的城中次生湿地。
    • D 移动广告的增长速度远远超过了其他广告形式，具备强劲的发展潜力。
55. • A 青蛙因经常吃害虫农田里的而被人们称为“庄稼的保护神”。
    • B 这次展出的齐白石的画作包括了他各个时期的花鸟山水精品。
    • C 行书是介于楷书和草书之间的一种字体，工整清晰，实用性高。
    • D 据统计，人类常见的疾病有135种，其中106种与维生素摄取不足有关。
56. • A 蔬菜要尽可能现炒现吃，逃避长时间保温和多次加热。
    • B 近期新车优惠少，观望客户较多，市场上出现了持币待购现象。
    • C “满月酒”是中国父母为庆祝自己的孩子出世满一个月而设的宴席。
    • D 他迷恋昆虫研究，曾用自己的积蓄买了一块儿荒地，专门用来放养昆虫。
57. • A 手指肚上有许多整齐又有规律的图形，这就是人们常说的“指纹”。
    • B 这种设计，既能减弱流水对桥身的冲击力，又能减轻桥自身的重量。
    • C 月亮反射的太阳光只有7%能到达地球，但已足够照亮地球上的黑夜。
    • D 一个人要有主见，要具备判断是非的能力，更不会被别人的意见所左右。
58. • A 好的摄影师能够把日常生活中稍纵即逝的平凡事物转化为不朽的视觉图像。
    • B 现实是此岸，理想是彼岸，中间隔着湍急的河流，行动则是架在河上的桥梁。
    • C 早在原始社会末期，人们就在石头或崖壁上刻画符号的方法用以记事，这就是碑的起源。
    • D 卧室里浓烈的色彩会刺激人的神经，让人过度兴奋，不利于人较快地进入深度睡眠状态。
59. • A 南京林业大学的一名学生设计了一种自动穿衣架，可帮那些手脚不便的人轻松穿上衣服。
    • B 南锣鼓巷全长786米。 以南锣鼓巷为主干，向东西各伸出对称的八条胡同，呈鱼骨状，俗称蜈蚣街。
    • C 凡是妨碍到人们正常休息、学习和工作的声音，以及对人们要听的声音产生干扰的声音，都属于噪声。
    • D 鲜花饼是一款以云南特有的食用玫瑰花入料的酥饼，是以凭“花味、云南味”为特色的云南经典点心的代表。
60. • A 《子不语》是清朝著名文学家袁枚撰写的一部笔记小品，多记述奇闻异事、奇人鬼怪。
    • B 森林能有效地保护生物的多样性，目前地球上已知的生物一半儿以上有在森林中栖息繁衍的。
    • C 紫丁香盛开时，硕大而艳丽的花序布满全株，芳香四溢，观赏效果甚佳，是庭园裁种的著名花木。
    • D 传统观念认为动画片的受众仅仅是儿童，但目前越来越多的公司开始推出适合不同年龄受众的多元化产品。

(I'm not expecting people to solve these; I include these to facilitate answers.) The answers are:

B B D B A A D C D B

(A previous question asked about this, but I'm not sure if that's just a once-off.)

Answer 1

For native Chinese who read and write a lot, there are many obvious mistakes we can spot in one glance, but for learners, these questions are indeed extremely difficult.

Things that are easy to spot:

保持年轻的 [之一秘诀] 是拥有健康的心态 --> 保持年轻的 [秘诀之一] 是拥有健康的心态

"XX 之一" is a common structure for "one of the XX "

~

春天来了，到处是呈现出一片生机勃勃的景象。 --> 春天来了，到处[是][呈现出]一片生机勃勃的景象。

是 is a verb, 呈现出 is also a verb. We only need one

The problem is not the difficulty. The problem is the long time it takes to go through the lengthy sentences.

Your teacher's suggestion was a practical one, for dealing with a time restrained test.

My suggestion is similar-- Answer the questions you know the answer first, leave the hard and long questions at the end.

Guess only at the last minute

Edit:

It took me 10 minutes to answer all ten questions. I guess non-native speakers would take three times as long. If a test has a time limit of two hours, and 200 questions, they would be spending 1/4 of their time to answer 1/20 of the questions.

Answer 2

I think it's hard for non-native speakers.

To me, I can probably identify all of the errors. But for some of the sentences, I have to read several times to identify the errors.

If non-native speakers can identify all of these errors, their Chinese must be gorgeous and probably even better than some native speakers who is not good at 语文课 in school.

I'd suggest you go through it first to see if you can identify some of them quickly. If not, you can go 'guess'. lol.

Have fun!

Answer 3

It has been long since their school time for adults, so many find it difficult to spot 语病.

@blackgreen made 4 mistakes in correcting the sentences, which are:

53.

通过载人航天技术的发展水平，体现了一个国家的综合实力。

载人航天技术的发展水平，体现了一个国家的综合实力。

缺谓语。

54.

任何每一个障碍，都有可能成为一个超越自我的契机。

任何（每一个）障碍，都有可能成为一个超越自我的契机。

明显的语意重复。

58.

早在原始社会末期，人们就在石头或崖壁上刻画符号的方法用以记事，这就是碑的起源。

早在原始社会末期，人们就在石头或崖壁上刻画符号以记事，这就是碑的起源。/早在原始社会末期，人们就用在石头或崖壁上刻画符号的方法记事，这就是碑的起源。

句式杂糅。

60.

森林能有效地保护生物的多样性，目前地球上已知的生物一半儿以上有在森林中栖息繁衍的。

森林能有效地保护生物的多样性，目前地球上已知的生物一半儿以上在森林中栖息繁衍。/森林能有效地保护生物的多样性，目前地球上已知的生物一半儿以上是在森林中栖息繁衍的。

结构搭配不当。

Answer 4

That's pretty hard. The first few ones are relatively simpler. It took me around 15 minutes to identify all the answers (and I got one two wrong!)

As for the OP's question: is it reasonable to guess? The first few items don't seem excessively hard, and the sentences are short, so you could just try and solve them. Then, if you're tight on time, you definitely can guess the last items, where the sentences are longer and the errors hidden deep in them.

Let's find the errors:

---

51 B

保持年轻的之一秘诀是拥有健康的心态。

It should be 「秘诀之一」: the "one of the" construction requires 之一 after the noun

---

52 B

春天来了，到处是呈现出一片生机勃勃的景象。

There is one extra 是 before 「呈现」

---

53 D

通过载人航天技术的发展水平，体现了一个国家的综合实力。

Edit: Extra 「水平」: it should be 「技术的发展」

---

54 B

任何每一个障碍，都有可能成为一个超越自我的契机。

Edit: Redundant 「任何」 and 「每一个」

---

55 A

青蛙因经常吃害虫农田里的而被人们称为“庄稼的保护神”

Should be 「吃农田里的害虫」

---

56 A

蔬菜要尽可能现炒现吃，逃避长时间保温和多次加热。

Bad verb, should be 「避免」 (avoid) instead of 「逃避」 (escape)

---

57 D I struggled with this one. On a closer look though:

一个人要有主见，要具备判断是非的能力，更不会被别人的意见所左右。

Tricky, but given that the other 3 choices sound correct, the error must be 「更」. It should be 才 instead.

The construction is XXX YYY 才 ZZZ， in order to achieve ZZZ you have to XXX YYY

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58 C

早在原始社会末期，人们就在石头或崖壁上刻画符号的方法用以记事，这就是碑的起源。

There is an extra 「方法」。The origin of 碑 is the 刻画 carving itself, not the carving method.

---

59 D

鲜花饼是一款以云南特有的食用玫瑰花入料的酥饼，是以凭“花味、云南味”为特色的云南经典点心的代表。

There's an extra 「凭」 that doesn't make a lot of sense

---

60 B

森林能有效地保护生物的多样性，目前地球上已知的生物一半儿以上有在森林中栖息繁衍的。

Extra 「有」 before 「在森林中」