This study investigates the relationships between test takers’ cognitive, metacognitive and affective strategy use and their Chinese reading test performance. A total of 552 test takers who were learning Chinese as a second language (L2) in universities in mainland China completed a high-stakes reading test and a self-reported strategy use questionnaire. Structural equation modeling analysis indicated that only cognitive strategy use directly influenced Chinese reading test performance while both metacognitive and affective strategy use did so in an indirect way. In addition, affective strategy use had direct effects on both metacognitive and cognitive strategy use. Metacognitive strategy use exerted a strong and direct effect on cognitive strategy use. The findings provide insight into the nature of strategy use as applied in L2 Chinese test contexts, especially affective strategy use, which has been less explored in literature. Implications of the findings are discussed for L2 Chinese language teaching and test validation.