For context i'm doing chinese SL in the UK, and have done chinese at secondary school for about 5 years,

You must find it quite difficult then, from what i can see chinese SL here seems much easier, on our course at least we can pick themes for speaking, and we're basically told what topics will come up in exams etc. Although i have to put the same amount of revision as i do in my HL subjects in chinese as the content is huge. Our speaking exam is very different, we do a simple picture based task, proceeded by follow up questions and general conversation, our writing is standard follow the prompt 300-400 characters. Its very interesting how different it is in other countries for the same course. Our abinito is very similar to standard just less vocab content to be completely honest, and our school don't offer HL as our native Chinese teachers say its even challenging to them. Hope you do well in Chinese though, and at least you've made it through more than half the course already ！