How do I make an ORDER BY score query faster?

Answer: Sorting by relevance (SCORE(n)) can be fast if you use the FIRST_ROWS(n) hint. In this case, Oracle Text performs a high-speed internal sort when fetching from the Oracle Text index tables.

Here is an example of this query:

SELECT /*+ FIRST_ROWS(10) */ ID, SCORE(1), TEXT FROM mytable
  WHERE CONTAINS (TEXT, 'searchterm', 1) > 0
  ORDER BY SCORE(1) DESC;

It is important to note that, there must be no other criteria in the WHERE clause, other than a single CONTAINS.