Generally you'll find three different types of scores, the overall structure/layout of the scores are usually fairly similar.

Most qin music that you will find is written in shorthand tablature. Shorthand tablature, or sometimes referred to as simplified tablature, or Jianzipu (簡字譜) are the symbols that indicate the note to play and how to play the note.

Some scores combine this with number notation, or Jianpu (簡譜). Number notation is a way of identifying notes with the numbers 1 to 7 instead of the letters A to G.

Other scores combine shorthand tablature with staff notation. 

Song Title: Name of the song.

Tuning: There are two pieces of information here that provide information on how to tune the qin, on some scores only one of the two is provided, but that is still sufficient. The first piece is information is in the four chinese characters, 正調 (standard) 定弦 (tuning). The second piece of information that informs us this is in standard tune is the number notation ( 5 6 1 2 3 5 6), where the first number is the note the first string is tuned to, the second number is the second string, and so forth. Combined with the information that 1 corresponds to F, we then know the strings are tuned C D F G A C D from the first string to the seventh string.

Song Attribution: For traditional songs the song attribution may contain information such as which handbook the song was originally from, who transcribed it, or the master whose version of the song the score is a trasncription of. These are important pieces of information, as guqin is an oral tradition passed from master to student, so there are often many versions/variations of the same song, so knowing whose "version" you are playing is often helpful. For those who are interested in the scholarly aspect of this, it is often interesting and insightful to see how a song transforms as it is passed down over the years. For for modern songs this section may contain information such as where the song originally appeared, such as movie/television/album, who was the original composer/singer the song is attributed to, and who transposed the song.

Tempo: This indicates that the tempo is 82 BPM (beats per minute). On some scores, the tempo is described in Chinese characters, simply put it into Google Translate. 

This generally follows the same structure as a score that has jianzipu and numerical notation. The only exception here is that the tuning is indicated by the number of flats/sharps. This song has 1 flat which indicates this is in the key of F. The only tuning that is in the key of F for qin is standard tuning 5612356 where 1 = F. Depending on the key there are sometimes more than one method of tuning, so it is rare to see the tuning indicated solely by key, generally you’ll be provided with more information.