There’s actually no such thing as learning styles (the topic has actually been discussed here on Forumosa, with me learning about the science of how it’s a total myth myself). With regards to language, believe it or not, all neurotypical human brains are wired to learn languages the same way — through constant input that you can understand, aka “comprehensible input”. We know this because all neurotypical humans acquire at least one language in early childhood without any effort or explicit instruction. Some people love to learn grammar and vocabulary and virtually every Chinese teacher on the planet will insist that it’s all about character learning (and knowing x number of characters means you’re at y level), but that’s why there’s this idea that Chinese is so hard to learn — you literally work against the way your brain was wired to acquire language when you study that way. But obviously if you like grammar patterns (and TOCFL is all about grammar patterns…), you are free to study as you please.
If you’re testing around A2/B1, the books you have listed are way above your level. You will get more out of your learning if there are a few new words (under 10, but according to @ironlady, and she’s got a PhD in the matter, 0 new words) with each text than if there are 50+ “key words” plus all the words you also didn’t know already. A Course in Contemporary Chinese 5, for example, is for people at a B2 level. That means you’re already testing at B2 on your practice tests, not working towards B2.
Take a few steps back and work on book 3 or even book 2 of that series. This might seem boring, but it’s what you need to really solidify what you’ve learned. I guarantee there will be words you don’t know at that level.
Also, listen more than reading/read along with texts while listening. This helps with your speaking skills more than anything, but you’re going to sound like a foreigner if you don’t hear the sounds of native speakers stringing words together. Also, you do have listening skills tested on TOCFL, and you’ll struggle if you’re not used to hearing spoken Chinese as it’s spoken by fluent speakers.
I recommend looking at books like “Taiwan Today” and other materials geared towards lower intermediate learners, since that’s where it seems you are.
For all the stupidly “China and America are the only countries on the planet and China is superior in all ways” rhetoric from ChinesePod, they’re actually a great source of relevant Chinese language. Make sure you don’t have any more than about five new words per dialogue though. This might mean working through their lowest levels first. If you search “ChinesePod”, there are quite a few places that have uploaded the podcasts for free so you don’t have to pay their insane prices to get access to their content.
You can also try to memorize long lists of words way above your level. That’s what you’d do if you did ICLP. It obviously works for enough people that the program still exists. But you really want to solidify your language in your brain. “i + 1” isn’t well defined nor well researched for that matter, but “just above your level” should refer to your actual comprehension level, not TOCFL/CEFR level.