CSCA Professional Chinese: Humanities or STEM, with Practice Examples

CSCA Professional Chinese has two categories: Humanities Chinese (文科中文) and STEM Chinese (理科中文). Choose the category required by your intended university and degree. Both papers assess Chinese used for academic study, and both are taken in Chinese. An English explanation can help you learn a method, but your preparation must include reading the Chinese wording itself.

This guide compares the categories and provides original Passumi terminology and reading exercises. These are independent practice examples, not official sample questions, recalled exam questions or leaked material. Start with Humanities Chinese practice or STEM Chinese practice once you have confirmed your required category.

How to choose the correct category

The official CSCA introduction tells applicants to select the Professional Chinese category according to the intended institution's program requirements. Its guidance for Chinese Government Scholarship undergraduate applications lists Mathematics and Professional Chinese as required, with the category determined by the program. For non-scholarship applications under the same published institutional scope, Professional Chinese is required for Chinese-taught programs.

Check your funding route as well as your teaching language. Do not assume that choosing an English-taught degree automatically resolves a scholarship's Chinese requirement. Likewise, do not assume that every applicant must take both Chinese papers.

Ask admissions a precise question: “For this degree, teaching language and scholarship route, do I need Humanities Chinese, STEM Chinese, or neither?” Save the written response alongside the current admissions notice. If you apply to several programs, make a separate entry for each.

What the two papers emphasize

The published humanities syllabus describes language needed to understand introductory academic texts, identify arguments and locate relevant information. Its disciplinary range includes literature, philosophy, law, education, history, journalism and the arts, among other areas.

The STEM syllabus emphasizes mathematical and scientific vocabulary, descriptions of experiments, formulas, data and technical explanations. It includes the language used around introductory mathematics, physics, chemistry and computing. Knowing the science can help, but it does not replace careful reading of conditions and logical relationships.

The official introduction lists 80 objective multiple-choice questions in 90 minutes for either Chinese paper, with scores on a 0–100 scale. The reproduced syllabus includes character recognition, word selection, word discrimination, passage completion, sentence completion and reading comprehension. Practicing only long passages leaves other skills untested.

Humanities vocabulary: distinguish an argument from its support

Useful academic terms include 观点, a viewpoint or claim; 论据, supporting evidence or reasons; 结论, a conclusion; and 反例, a counterexample. Their meanings are connected, but they are not interchangeable. A conclusion may follow from evidence; a counterexample challenges a claim's scope.

Original terminology exercise:

Answer: A, 论据. The sentence says the author uses survey findings to support a viewpoint. That makes them evidence. A conclusion is what the author infers; a table of contents and a title organize or label a text. The phrase 支持其观点 supplies the decisive clue.

When learning a term, record one useful partner phrase: 提出观点 means to put forward a view, and 提供论据 means to provide supporting evidence. Such combinations help you choose words that fit both meaning and grammar.

Humanities reading: preserve the author's qualifications

Original reading passage:

Answer: C. The passage reports more weekend visits and an interpretation that longer opening hours help working people. It then states a limitation: the survey did not measure each reader's reading time. The evidence supports a cautious conclusion about convenience, not a firm conclusion about reading volume.

Option A changes “little change” into “a clear decrease.” Option B replaces visitor counts with reading volume and adds “every reader,” a stronger claim than the evidence supports. Option D treats insufficient evidence for one outcome as proof of no effect at all.

Notice 不过, meaning “however,” and 不能仅凭, meaning “cannot rely only on.” They signal the qualification that controls the answer. Under time pressure, readers often remember the first positive result and overlook this final restriction.

STEM vocabulary: identify the variable and the condition

A useful starting set is 变量, variable; 浓度, concentration; 体积, volume; 质量, mass; and 保持不变, remain constant. Also distinguish 增加到, increase to a final value, from 增加了, increase by an amount.

Original terminology exercise:

Answer: A, 保持不变. To isolate the effect of temperature, the other conditions remain constant. The expression 只改变 introduces the single changed factor. The other options introduce uncontrolled changes or do not make scientific sense.

This is a language exercise about an experimental condition, not a calculation of reaction rate. Practice identifying what a question asks before importing a formula from another subject.

STEM reading: follow a relationship through a calculation

Original reading passage:

Answer: B. The text says the amount of solute stays constant and the total solution volume doubles. Concentration therefore halves, from 0.40 mol/L to 0.20 mol/L.

The full calculation is n = 0.40 mol/L × 0.050 L = 0.020 mol, followed by c = 0.020 mol / 0.100 L = 0.20 mol/L. The units cancel correctly in the first step and give concentration in the second.

The key language is 总体积, total volume, and 不损失, no loss. The passage does not say that 100 milliliters of water are added. Reading it that way would change the final volume and produce an answer to a different problem.

Build a repeatable reading routine

Read the question first to identify the target: a main idea, a word meaning, an inference or a numerical relationship. Then mark the sentence containing the evidence and any words that limit its meaning. Reject options that add claims such as “all,” “always” or “proves” without textual support.

After checking the answer, explain it in simple Chinese before consulting an English explanation. Keep a record of recurring errors: unknown terms, missed negatives, confused reference words or unsupported inferences. Review a few sentences daily rather than collecting vocabulary without context.

Use the CSCA hub to connect your Chinese preparation with other required subjects. Passumi currently provides the first 25% of each available paper free. Choose Humanities Chinese or STEM Chinese for your next practice session.

Official sources and last checked

Last checked: October 15, 2026. Original exercises above illustrate selected skills, not a complete examination blueprint.

• Official CSCA exam introduction: category selection, languages and current format.
• Official CSCA preparation resources: syllabuses for both Chinese categories.
• GDUFS introduction with reproduced Chinese syllabuses: academic-language objectives and task types. Its older timetable is not used as current scheduling evidence.