TOCFL in Taichung

After a year and 3 months of studying Mandarin in Taiwan, from barely speak anything Mandarin to daily life conversation. I challenged myself to take TOCFL (華語文能力測驗). 

Introduction

I am an Indonesian born Chinese, and for as long as I live in Indonesia, I never once spoken Chinese with my parents, even though they use everyday easy Chinese such 起床, 運動, 讀書,  吃飯, 等的一些容易的詞. I do take Mandarin Lessons, but I need more, so I go to Taiwan for a further language study.  I was planning to take Master Degree here, but things are not always go as it planned, after a year and a half, I will go back to Indonesia. 

The Registration

The university I'm currently studying at, provide discount 10% off. But we can't input the code by ourselves, we need to ask the school's TOCFL Department, they will ask test takers to register on the official website https://reg.sc-top.org.tw/.  

After the online registration done, DO NOT immediately select your exam place. Go to the school first, ask the staff for discount code, they will ask your identification numbers such as ARC and passport number, then the staff will tell you to select the exam place.

I chose TOCFL Listening and Reading Band B, in Tsinghua University, Hsinchu Province. Yep, the exam place in Taipei for the Band B test were already full. 

It is not done yet, that day I spent about 30 minutes just to register... We still need once again to fill in forms.    

The Preparation 

There is this series of books that my friend recommends, TOCFL Learning Materials. 

I know that my level is around B, so I bought the level 3 and level 4 book, bought them online for 360NTD and 375NTD from their original price 480NTD and 500NTD. I save up 245NTD (25% off) and need to wait for 3 working days. So, if you need them urgent, you can go to the bookstore. Most of the book store may give 10% off discount by showing your student ID.

Test Experience 

On 14th November 2020, at Tsing Hua University, I got to see the computer seat pasted on the classroom window. Before test takers get into the test room, the test keeper will announce the test rules. The most important thing is you need to turn off your phone because once it rings or vibrates, it's definite zero. 

TOCFL is a Computerized Test System, on my seat they already gave a paper which is written unique username and password to log in the Test System. Also, in the same paper, we can take notes for the Listening Test.

We need to finish 100 points in exact 2 hours, the first hour is the listening test and the second hour is the reading test. In the listening part, they will read the articles, questions, and answers. We need to answer within 5 seconds, and the system will automatically move to the next question.  

When the listening part ends, it will automatically continue to the reading part. 

Reading part has a 60 minutes timer, so here's my tip: do not try to understand the contexts if you don't know the character. I wasted my time doing this and when I realized I only had 15 minutes left, I still need to answer about 20 questions.  

When you're done, click on submit, and also submit the notes paper to the test keeper, then you can leave the test room.  

Certificate

Receiving your score is the most important thing, right? This is one of the registration information that you need to fill in. Where the mailing address should the committee send you. 

If you are still in Taiwan, you can set receiving certificate mailing address to your university. One of my friend who are planning going back to Indonesia within 2 months from the test date, she can set her certificate mailing address to her home, I think we don't need to pay more for the overseas mailing.