口试
koǔ shì · HSK 6
oral examination
🎤📝 口试 = mouth + test: speak your answers, dont write them
口 (mouth) appears in many speech-related words. Paired with 试 (test/exam), it specifies the format — answers are spoken aloud rather than written on paper.
口 — pictograph of an open mouth
口 is one of the oldest pictographs in Chinese, originally drawn as a simple outline of an open mouth. Its core meaning 'mouth' extended naturally to 'opening' or 'entrance', as in 入口 (entrance). It also serves as a common radical in characters related to speech, eating, or apertures.
试 — speech radical 讠 (言) + 式 shì
试 is a semantic-phonetic compound. The speech radical 讠 (言, 'words/speech') gives the meaning, since testing originally involved questioning or verbal trial. The right side 式 ('pattern, model') supplies the sound shì. Together they suggest 'to try out by a set method,' yielding senses like test, try, attempt.