<p>I born in Hong Kong and my first language is Cantonese.
I have to put lots of efforts to learn Mandarin (speaking and writing) at school so apparently it is my second language. My question is would colleges still look down at me if I take the chinese test as being a maybe-native speaker?
Thanks!</p>
<p>Technically, Hong Kong is grouped into the same region as China, and I doubt that colleges understand that there is a difference between Cantonese and Mandarin (just like they don’t understand that Taiwan is definitely a country). I would still go ahead and take it because it seems like an easy 800 for you, although be warned: the percentile for getting an 800 is around 60%, so it’s not as impressive as say, a subject test in sciences.</p>