[My High-Score TOEFL Experience]

School and major: student in the Pai-Chuan Program at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (computer science core)

Score: 108 (reading 28 listening 30 speaking 24 writing 26)

Test date: 2024/10/12

[Section-by-section tips & how I prepared]

[Reading]

One technique is knowing what the keywords are. In class the teacher explains a lot about how questions are written and how passages are structured. Add the keywords in the passage, such as transition words and examples, and what comes right before or after them is often what gets tested. Get used to marking and organizing these parts as you listen and read, then practice with questions; that's more efficient.

[Listening]

In class the teacher drills and explains real past questions for each question type. I think the most important skill is note-taking. If your notes are both complete and fast, you can often find the answer right in them. Also, if you already have a decent listening foundation, listen to podcasts, watch movies or binge shows, so you build your listening in your free time too.

[Speaking]

Speaking was the hardest part for me, because I rarely get a chance to actually use and practice it. The most direct way is again to use the real questions the teacher provides and time yourself. That best simulates the conditions and time pressure of the test. Also, you must record yourself, listen back, and correct things based on what you said. After practicing, you'll develop some go-to expressions and feel much more at ease on test day.

[Writing]

The teacher provides plenty of real questions and model essays. After writing a practice essay, don't just stop there. What matters more is having someone (or AI) correct it, and thinking carefully about which parts could be better, smoother and more like a native speaker. The teacher also provides lots of example sentences; memorize a few common ones so you don't have to worry about transitions, starting a new paragraph and so on during the test.

[Study plan]

I actually prepared for the TOEFL on the side while preparing for the GRE. GRE reading and writing are harder than the TOEFL's and need a bigger vocabulary, so for the TOEFL I mostly prepared listening and speaking. My usual plan was, after a day of classes at school, to go online or use Wordgod (字神)'s question bank to do 2 full speaking tasks, and use https://testadmit.com/toefl/ to do 2 listening sets. I kept this up for about two weeks after finishing the Wordgod course. In the week before the test, I took a full practice test every two days and reviewed the questions I got wrong or spent too long on, so I knew which details I tended to miss and could fix them.

[Test center report]

I took the test at the whygo 語文中心 (whygo language center). The only thing to watch out for there is that the air conditioning isn't very consistent. I tested there two weeks in a row, once for the TOEFL and once for the GRE, and the temperature differed quite a bit between the two days. If you're sensitive to temperature, bring an extra jacket or hoodie.

[Words of encouragement for other test takers]

Preparing for a test is a marathon with no finish line. Besides how much you prepare, what matters is how efficiently you prepare and how you feel physically on test day. Study in moderation, and review every day. Don't pull all-nighters for the test; keep an even better routine. Rest when you're tired and keep studying once you wake up with energy. If you get sick or something else happens and have to pause your study plan, that's the biggest loss. Your mental state also matters a lot. Rewarding yourself now and then for your effort is one of the keys to keep moving forward on the road of preparation.

[Score report]