Taiwan last year posted its best average TOEIC score since the English-proficiency test was offered in the nation in 2001, Taipei-based exam service company Chun Shin said earlier this month.
Taiwanese averaged 581 — out of a maximum of 990 — on the test, formerly known as the Test of English for International Communication, up 13 points from 2023, Chun Shin said.
TOEIC test takers who improved the most were those aged 15 to 17, said Chun Shin, which attributed the age group’s average score of 622 — up 38 points from 2023 — to Taiwanese universities listing the test score as a reference in school applications.
Photo courtesy of Chun Shin via CNA
The 25-to-29 age group had the highest average score of 634, possibly because of work demands, Chun Shin said.
Meanwhile, in a report released in the middle of May by ETS, formerly known as the Educational Testing Service, on TOEIC test takers worldwide last year, 27 percent said they took the test for job application purposes, 26 percent for learning and 26 percent for graduation.
Asked how often they use English in their daily life, a large number of test takers in Taiwan, along with Japan, China and South Korea, said “that they had to use English for only 1 to 10 percent of their daily life,” the report said.
Japan came in first at 44 percent, followed by Taiwan and China at 43 percent, and South Korea at 39 percent, the ETS report said, adding that “the vast majority of test takers (nearly 3.23 million) included in this report are from Asia.”
The survey showed that 32 percent of all test takers said that they used English mostly for reading, led by Taiwan at 42 percent, followed by China and Peru, both at 39 percent.
Last year, test takers in Lebanon posted the highest average score of 853 among the 39 “native countries” listed in the ETS report, followed by Germany with 811 and India with 772.
Costa Rican test takers posted an average score 768 — the highest in Latin America — followed by Peru’s 724.
In Asia, the Philippines’ average score of 719 was second only to India’s, followed by South Korea with 678 and Malaysia with 668.
Test takers in China posted an average score of 561, while Hong Kong test takers scored an average 547, Indonesia 468, Myanmar 580 and Vietnam 570.
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