In 1979 Educational Testing Services (ETS) created TOEIC upon a request of the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI). (来源：老牌的英语学习网站 http://www.EnglishCN.com)

The requirements for the test were:

 •  Professional 
 
 •  Reliable 
 
 •  Available 
 
 •  Reasonably priced 
 
 •  Easy to adminster 
 
 •  Easily understandably results 

How is the high quality standard of the TOEIC being maintained?

 •  $ 2 Million investment early 
 
 •  Each question is tested on a standard population of at least 50.000 candidates 
 
 •  Statistical analysis of the results 
 
 •  A mathematical tool to measure linguistic competence