[Zishen (字神) TOEFL] My High-Score Experience

School and program: Graduated from the Institute of Bioinformatics and Structural Biology, National Tsing Hua University (NTHU)

Scores: 1st attempt: R28 L19 S15 W17; 2nd attempt: R27 L25 S16 W22

Test dates: 2025/09/27, 2025/12/20

[Tips & prep for each section]

[Reading]

Because I read a lot of English papers in grad school, reading was a relatively easy section for me to master.

I strongly recommend that during your prep you make a habit of reading academic articles or

journals in different fields. This greatly expands your academic vocabulary and also trains your brain to quickly pick out an article's main idea and paragraph structure.

Once you're used to the long, difficult sentences and the way academic papers build their logic, you'll

handle TOEFL reading with ease, and your speed and accuracy will go up.

[Listening]

I do listen to English podcasts regularly, but the hard part of TOEFL listening is "staying highly focused for a long time."

Academic lectures often run 3 to 5 minutes, and you have to catch the outline and also handle tricky detail questions.

My score jumped from 19 on the first attempt to 25 on the second, and the key was changing

my note-taking strategy. I found that chasing perfect notes made me miss important information, so my method

was: "write down whatever I hear, as much as I can." The act of writing is purely there to force my brain to stay focused

and keep it from drifting off. Of course, when a subject is extremely hard and packed with technical terms, I switch strategies right away:

I put the pen down and concentrate on understanding the overall logic first, instead of fighting over every word.

[Speaking]

Many thanks to teacher Wordgod. I used to have little confidence in speaking, and the lessons helped me build

a systematic way to answer, so I know exactly how to approach and practice each question type. As for test-day strategy,

I learned that "fluency beats fancy words." For me, rather than forcing out obscure vocabulary or complex

sentence patterns (which easily lead to grammar mistakes or bad stalls), it's better to play it safe and use basic,

simply structured sentences to answer the question precisely. A steady pace and clear logic are what keep your baseline score

safe in the test room.

[Writing]

For writing, I highly recommend doing lots of real practice with past questions on KMF (考滿分), and I'm also very

grateful to Wordgod for the free practice resources and channels. Writing is a section where "as long as you put in the practice time, the score

responds very directly." Doing lots of questions improved my typing speed and made me more familiar

with ways to approach different topics. Practicing writing under a timer trains you to come up with arguments and examples quickly under

pressure, and it helped me raise my score from 17 to 22.

[Study plan]

As an office worker, my time was extremely fragmented. I spent an hour after getting up early listening to English podcasts for listening practice,

read English papers during work hours, and focused on intensive writing and speaking practice at night. Wordgod's online

courses let me set my own pace and balance a busy job with test prep.

[Test center report]

Test center: [Why Go test center, Zhongxiao Fuxing (忠孝復興why go考場)]

Environment: The equipment is new and in good condition, the soundproof partitions are tall enough, and there's little interference from other test takers' speaking.

The proctors are professional and everything runs smoothly. I recommend it if noise bothers you.

[A word of encouragement for other test takers]

The TOEFL tests more than your English; it's the ultimate test of logical thinking and handling pressure. As long as you stay focused

and keep your attention, you can perform at your usual level. Keep going, and the score you want will be yours in the end.

[Score report]