TOCFL (Test of Chinese as a Foreign Language)

The Test of Chinese as a Foreign Language (TOCFL) is Taiwan's standardized test of proficiency in Standard Chinese for non-native speakers.

It is administered by the Steering Committee for the Test Of Proficiency-Huayu (SC-TOP). The test was formerly known as the TOP or Test Of Proficiency-Huayu.

There are three TOCFL tests:

• Listening & Reading
• Speaking
• Writing

Each test has six levels that can be awarded, that correspond quite well with the CEFR framework.

Below is a comparrison I made to CEFR, HSK 3.0 and HSK 2.0, based on cumulative vocabulary size of each level.

I took the TOCFL Listening & Reading CAT exam for the first time on April 13th. I posted my full experience on my blog.

I took the TOCFL Listening & Reading exam again today, and this time got a higher level on the listening part.

I posted my full experience on my blog.

On 7/21/2024 at 9:50 AM, DCTZ said:

Anyone have any insight on this? Would like to be more prepared for next time if this happens again.

The number of questions on the CAT exam is different for every test taker as it depends on your answers the previous questions.

I believe that the exam ends when the CAT algorithm is able to decide on a grade for you.

Last month I took the TOCFL Speaking Band B exam for the first time, and got the results a couple days ago.

I posted my full experience on my blog.

My TOCFL Level 4 Speaking certificate arrived today. Looks like they've added a QR code for verification.

Linking @jannesan’s thread here too. One of the best TOCFL results I’ve ever seen.
 

On 1/6/2025 at 7:06 PM, jannesan said:

I have finally received the results and to my surprise I have passed both listening and reading, with listening even at C2 level. It feels a bit wrong to be attested a C2 level which I associate with native level fluency, all the while I am not able to watch most TV shows without subtitles 😄 

 

One good take-away from the results is my relatively poor performance on the questions with a lot of idioms. That matches my feeling during the exam. This is good motivation for me to focus on drilling idioms in 2025

 

 

I took the TOCFL Listening & Reading CAT exam for the third time today, the first time in 11 months. Going into it, I was feeling very confident, having recently boosted my reading ability. Last time I took the exam I got Level 4 (CEFR B2 / equiv. to HSK 6) on the listening section but only Level 3 (CEFR B1) on the reading section, which was a fair grade because my reading was very far behind my listening at the time. Over the last two months or so I have been heavily working on my reading, with the aim to also get Level 4 for reading. And since it had been a while since I passed Level 4 listening, I was also hoping to get Level 5 (CEFR C1) for listening.

Annoyingly, when the listening section started, the audio for my first test item didn't play. I called over one of the exam staff and after trying to fix it for a while, they eventually moved me over to another computer, where I logged in and was finally able to hear audio. Unfortunately, by the time my audio was working, I had already missed audio for the first five questions (and there were only about 30 overall, so more than 16% of my total test). The staff said they couldn't restart the exam for me... Not only did I lose points on those easy first questions that I would definitely have gotten right, but I was thinking about this through the rest of the exam which threw me off quite a bit. Because of all this, my listening score was the same as the first time I did the listening section about a year ago (550 out of 700)...

The reading section was a different story though, I did really well. Last time I did the reading test in May 2024, I got 540 out 700, but this time I got 585 out of 700, a 45 point increase, which was good enough to get Level 4 for reading, which I have never got before. Almost all of that 45 point progress came in the last two months too, since I wasn't focused on reading much before then, so this is a really good motivation for me to keep sticking to my current study routine. I was actually only 3.6% (25 points) away from getting C1 on reading, so if I keep studying at this level and don't get burned out, I may actually be able to achieve C1 on my next exam.

Here are the official TOCFL level descriptors for the reading section, with the level I got this time highlighted:

I took the TOCFL Listening & Reading CAT exam for the fourth time today. This time, no malfunctions in the software.

I didn't quite get Level 5 (CEFR C1), but I was very close, and it was my best score to date for both listening and reading.

I got 600/700 for reading (beating my previous best of 585/700), and 580/700 for listening (beating my previous best of 565/700).

I was only 10 points off Level 5 on the reading section, and 20 off on the listening section.

I made these two charts to track my progress since first taking the exam in April 2024:

The listening chart above doesn't include my April 2025 listening score, since the exam software malfunctioned, severely affecting my score.

I took the TOCFL Listening & Reading CAT exam again today, and very happy to say that I finally got Level 5/CEFR C1 (equiv. to HSK 7) on the listening section.

Really happy with the result, because I am also half the way there to Level 6/CEFR C2.

According to TOCFL, Level 5 has the following definition:
 

Quote

Can understand enough to follow extended speech on abstract and complex topics outside one’s own field, even when the presentation is not clearly structured
and when relationships are only implied and not signaled explicitly, though he/she may need to confirm occasional details, especially if the accent is unfamiliar.

I didn't do quite so well on the reading section this time, scoring enough to just about get Level 4, but hopefully I can make up for that next time.

On 6/21/2025 at 1:52 PM, Elliott Jones said:

I finally got Level 5/CEFR C1 (equiv. to HSK 7) on the listening section

Got my score report today, confirming Level 5/CEFR C1 for listening!

On 7/17/2025 at 2:15 PM, Elliott Jones said:

Got my score report today, confirming Level 5/CEFR C1 for listening!

Great job! What'd be the best way to prepare for the TOCFL? I have to take it sometime in the upcoming year, but I'm debating on whether to take it 2-4 times before just to get used to the test format. But maybe the mock tests are enough? I don't really want to spend too much prepping for it either way, and it costs like NT$2k right?

On 7/21/2025 at 11:45 AM, Parakeetcactus said:

What'd be the best way to prepare for the TOCFL? I have to take it sometime in the upcoming year, but I'm debating on whether to take it 2-4 times before just to get used to the test format. But maybe the mock tests are enough? I don't really want to spend too much prepping for it either way, and it costs like NT$2k right?

The mock exams are definitely worth taking, so you can get used to the format, you should take every single one available for the level you want to take. The most important thing when doing mock exams is to do it as if you are taking the real exam, meaning you do all the questions without a break. For example, if I take a Band C mock reading exam without a break, I might get 80% of the questions correct, but if I do a few questions a day over a week or so, then I can get 90%+ correct. The real challenge of the TOCFL reading exam, especially at Band C, is not the difficulty of the questions, but the ability of the test taker to maintain focus whilst reading page after page of high level text. It is very difficult to put the maximum amount of effort into reading a piece of text after you have already read ten just like it.

Another thing to note about the reading section is to make sure you are comfortable reading in a Kaiti font, as that is what is used on the paper and computer exam (although the computer exam uses a very pixelated version). You can change your Anki font to Kaiti, if that's what you use, or just use material that uses the Kaiti font to practice reading. You are probably already reading Contemporary Chinese (當代) series, but if not then definitely read them. 當代5 roughly corresponds to Level 4 of the TOCFL, and 當代6 roughly corresponds to Level 5. Personally I didn't read the whole books, I just read the 40 articles and added any new vocab into Anki.

It's hard to give more concrete advice without knowing what level you are aiming for, but if you let me know I'd be happy to share more info.

Oh, and yes, the exam in Taiwan is NT$2000.

On 7/22/2025 at 3:22 AM, Elliott Jones said:

The mock exams are definitely worth taking, so you can get used to the format, you should take every single one available for the level you want to take. The most important thing when doing mock exams is to do it as if you are taking the real exam, meaning you do all the questions without a break. For example, if I take a Band C mock reading exam without a break, I might get 80% of the questions correct, but if I do a few questions a day over a week or so, then I can get 90%+ correct. The real challenge of the TOCFL reading exam, especially at Band C, is not the difficulty of the questions, but the ability of the test taker to maintain focus whilst reading page after page of high level text. It is very difficult to put the maximum amount of effort into reading a piece of text after you have already read ten just like it.

 

Another thing to note about the reading section is to make sure you are comfortable reading in a Kaiti font, as that is what is used on the paper and computer exam (although the computer exam uses a very pixelated version). You can change your Anki font to Kaiti, if that's what you use, or just use material that uses the Kaiti font to practice reading. You are probably already reading Contemporary Chinese (當代) series, but if not then definitely read them. 當代5 roughly corresponds to Level 4 of the TOCFL, and 當代6 roughly corresponds to Level 5. Personally I didn't read the whole books, I just read the 40 articles and added any new vocab into Anki.

 

It's hard to give more concrete advice without knowing what level you are aiming for, but if you let me know I'd be happy to share more info.

 

Oh, and yes, the exam in Taiwan is NT$2000.

Thanks for the advice! How long do the mock tests take? The CAT takes less time I've heard, as it adjusts itself depending on your answers? I think I'm around TOCFL 3 right now but I'm going to do the mock tests in some months and get a more proper estimation, hoping to reach at least TOCFL 4 at the end of next year. I'm not using 當代 at the moment (but have used it before last time I was in Taiwan) but will be using 時代漢語 in some month, though I think the levels are a bit similar. Luckily I've actually been using KaiTi for both DuChinese and Pleco, by far my favorite font!

On 7/22/2025 at 12:22 PM, Parakeetcactus said:

I'm around TOCFL 3 right now but I'm going to do the mock tests in some months and get a more proper estimation, hoping to reach at least TOCFL 4 at the end of next year.

So, at this level you have a lot of good resources to pick from.

For listening practice, I'd recommend the Talk Taiwanese Mandarin with Abby podcast, its one of the only podcasts at this level that is still somewhat interesting.

If you need to introduce new vocabulary but not sure where to start, Super Chinese's Level 5 and Level 6 courses (which you could complete in a month each) are good. The vocabulary is technically from the HSK lists, but its still very relevant for the TOCFL and is available in Traditional Chinese. Add all the new vocab to Anki.

Definitely look into the 當代 books, for their articles, in my opinion they are the best resource for TOCFL reading prep. You would probably want to look at 當代4 at your level. If I remember correctly, each book has 20 articles/passages. Do one of those articles/passages a day whilst adding all the unknown vocab into Anki.

On 7/22/2025 at 12:22 PM, Parakeetcactus said:

How long do the mock tests take? The CAT takes less time I've heard, as it adjusts itself depending on your answers?

There are actually mock tests now in both PDF format and in CAT format. For the real exam, if you take it in Taiwan you can only do CAT, but if you do the CAT mock exam more than once, you'll notice a lot of questions are repeated so I'd recommend doing the PDF format mock exams after you've done the CAT mock exam once. The CAT exam can take up to 2 hours, and you are right it does adjust based on your answers; at level 3 I would expect it to take around an hour and a half in total.

On 7/22/2025 at 6:47 AM, Elliott Jones said:

So, at this level you have a lot of good resources to pick from.

For listening practice, I'd recommend the Talk Taiwanese Mandarin with Abby podcast, its one of the only podcasts at this level that is still somewhat interesting.

Seems like I'm on a good track already as I've been using that podcast as well as "Learn Taiwanese Mandarin" as my two primary go-to podcasts. But it's just recently that I've been getting more comfortable listening to Abby's podcast as her speech is way more flowy and natural-sounding than "Learn Taiwanese Mandarin", even though that one is good too.

On 7/22/2025 at 6:47 AM, Elliott Jones said:

Definitely look into the 當代 books, for their articles, in my opinion they are the best resource for TOCFL reading prep. You would probably want to look at 當代4 at your level. If I remember correctly, each book has 20 articles/passages. Do one of those articles/passages a day whilst adding all the unknown vocab into Anki.

I'll do this! Good reading practice either way!

Thanks for all your help!