Disclosed in the present invention is a method for preparing type II
arabinogalactan (AG-II). The method comprises the following steps: (i) weighing a proper amount of a
polysaccharide sample, dissolving same in a
salt solution, centrifuging same to obtain a supernatant, adding to the supernatant a Yariv
reagent solution the volume of which is equal to that of the supernatant, uniformly mixing same, reacting same for a period of time, and performing
centrifugation to obtain a precipitate; (ii) adding a
salt solution to the precipitate, vortexing same, centrifuging same, removing a supernatant, and repeating the operations 2-4 times; and (iii) adding a
sodium dithionite solution having a certain concentration to the washed precipitate, and after the solution becomes faint yellow or colorless, dialyzing same with
cellophane in flowing water for a period of time, and
drying same to obtain the type II
arabinogalactan (AG-II). The
polysaccharide sample contains the type II
arabinogalactan (AG-II). The present invention uses the Yariv
reagent as a chemical method for rapidly preparing the
polysaccharide AG-II and uses same as a means for controlling the quality of traditional Chinese medicinal materials rich in polysaccharide AG-II.