To be honest, back when I was in junior high school or high school I didn't really like to read that much. I did enjoy some books, like Homer Hickam's famous October Sky, and its series, but that was pretty much it. (Well maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but yeah.)
I took the Eiken 1-kyu (English test) when I was 20 and failed the first test because I was very dumb to forget about the essay in the last part. I can't say I studied a lot for this test. I was disappointed in myself, but it triggered something in me to study English much more. I felt I can't just give up here.
2 years later, in 2012 I took the TOEIC for the first time. I went to a station called Totsuka in Yokohama to take the test, and rode on a bus to a college where the test took place. There must have been a few hundred people taking the test on that day in the same testing site that day, and I was a little nervous.
After tackling questions that seemed to be like a sort of IQ test and business know-how test divided by two, I finished the test.
I remember on the way back to Totsuka Station, I was standing on the bus quite relieved and moderately confident of myself.
A few months later, the result was posted online for as a early result. I took a deep breath and loaded the TOEIC page.
990.
I reloaded again, thinking there must have been some kind of an error.
990.
I was like "WHAAT??!" and looked closely at my device. I quickly called my mother of the result and she was very happy.
Since then, I get a lot of offers from various recruiters. I am thankful for that, but I am now determined to study to get a Master's degree in economics. I trust God will guide my path.
Tsubasa Kato 1/22/2017
Updated: 5/28/2018:
Tips for increasing your TOEIC score drastically:
Watch YouTube videos about topics you like which the language is in English. That will make you be able to familiarize yourself with English spoken by people from all over the world, with their own accents. This is totally effective not only in increasing TOEIC scores but will prepare for you to communicate with English speaking people all over the globe. That is what you need, and what you want.
Get a Nexus Player by Google or Apple TV to play the YouTube videos if you can afford to. The fact that you have a remote controller to quickly skip and control videos is a big plus in your English learning from YouTube.