Yesterday I told you my English proficiency is far, far from satisfication, and I will tell you the truth.  There you go, now.

I have taken two English proficiency tests before, a TOEFL and a TOEIC apiece.  But both of the scores I got are not satisfactory to me.  In 1970, soon after I was discharged from military service at Kimen, a friend invited me to attend a crammed class for TOEFL with her.  You know, I had no intention of further studying abroad and I even did not have the money to pay the fee.  But she insisted and lent me the money.  After an intensive learning for a month or so, in the real test I got a not bad score, yet it fell short of the landmark of excellency: 600 points.  (She, a graduate of English literature, reached that landmark, and later she went to Canada for further studying.  I have not met her since. Wish her all the best.)  You know, in that time I also had a stupid idea that having a certificate of English proficiency like TOEFL would help me find a job easier.  I was wrong, later I found no employer would like to hire a potential employee with a TOEFL as one of his/her credentials.) 

Decades later, in order to encourage my subordinates to take TOEIC, which was one of the necessary but not the sufficient requisites for promotion, I took myself as an exemplar for them to copy:  I participated the test, though it was not essential to me.  (This time I did not have to borrow money for a crammed class; all I had to do was to know what TOEIC is like.)  Again, I failed to attain the score representing another landmark: 900 points.  (I do not blame TOEIC of being sort of unfair to senior participants, especially those with hearing problem like me.)

Those are the facts about my English proficiency: I am not good at English, at least not good enough that you might think I am.