Dont bother trying to make it fun

So, this semester at my school I was the lucky teacher chosen to teach TOEFL. For any of you who are not aware of what that is, it is a horrible standardized test that ESL students usually have to take to get into English universities.

So, what I am suppose to do for this class is focus on purely academic topics (the first being addictions) to improve their English. They have to read and write and listen to professors give lectures on these terribly dull topics and then compare what they have read to what they have heard and ... the list of this boring test goes on.

This morning i had to teach my first lesson. To describe how difficult it is to prep for this let me just give an example. In an hour, i can normally get 3 to 4 full 2 and a half hour lessons planned. This morning i spent the whole hour trying to fgure out what i cold do for 20 mins. Thats right, 20 mins. When i thought of playing a game with my students i was told by another teacher "dont bother trying to have fun. stay away from fun." He is the pro in this whole test teaching thing so i figured it was against the rules to actually try and have the students enjoy the class.

It turns out that you can have fun with the students after all. But, please can anyone tell me how on earth you make talking about addictions and such topics fun and interesting? All i can come up with is listening, reading writing and vocab. And we have a few speaing things we can do. But man, ive been working on a lesson for about 3 hours and have come up with a big 15 mins. Not nearly enough.

So if you have any ideas these are my topics: Addiction, communities (Eutopia), personalities, trends, cross cultural insight, faith, the work place, perspectives on war and finally, the arts.
I hope to get some creative ideas from whoever reads this seeing as how i havent updated in ages im sure ive lost some readers.