Customer Reviews

Cambridge Preparation for the TOEFL® Test Book with CD-ROM and Audio Cassettes pack (Cambridge Preparation for the Toefl Test S.)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

1) The best Essay section. After doing all excercises you will able to map out a very good essay within 30 minutes. I had Kaplan, Princenton, Cliff's, Barrons, and Delta, but this essay section is much much better. Any one who would like to have good score for essay needs the book.
2) Grammar section does not reflect real exam. Make no sense to practice problems you won't meet on the test. There is a lot of junk information which has never been used on the test. I took the test twice so did friends of mine. Remarkably enough, ETS and authors of the book have different perspective for English grammar. Problems heavily emphasized in the book will most likely completely ignored on an actual exam.
3) Reading section is very good.
4) Listening comprehension is good, particularly in terms of phrasal verbs and idioms.
5) There are 7 full lenght tests on the CD Rom.
For more practice with real full scale computer tests I can recommend you to buy Delta's Key for Toefl Tests (10 tests) or Cliff's (6 tests). In addition, Cliff's has very useful grammar section.

I read previous version of this book. It's a wonderful book with an excellent Reading Section. Its Toefl essay section is all that one need to write a good essay. Prior to reading its section, I scored 3.0 on TWE and after it- 5.0. So, it teaches you how to write essay even if you didn't write american essay before. The listening section is also full and very comprehensive. SO, if you have a patience and read it, you'll improve your score greatly, but no more than 560-80, if you don't use another listening sources as radio and TV. However, grammar section is not very strong. Among many books I read, I found useful only Barron's grammar. Cambridge's grammar is understandable only if you read Barron's before. Otherwise,you'll find it a bit difficult. But it has a good quiz for each grammar lesson(Barron's quiz is very simple and don't give you an assurance in your knowledge). I would recommend this book for everyone who want to score high together with Barron's grammar. Actually, I scored 610. So, decide it by yourself, but allow at least 3 months for whole book review.

This is a pretty good book, I would say (although, I can't compare it with other ones). The book has 4 sections for each of the testsections. Each section has tiny steps and explains everything. After each step you take a small test to see if you understood everything. I got bored with all the explanations and examples, so I only did the tests and reviewed the sections, where I had problems.
It comes with a CD-Rom, which is very good, because you can practice either the computer test or the written Test. The only problem is the listening section is not on the CD-Rom. You have to buy it extra on CDs (which I couldn't find and actually don't want to spend extra money for). So if you have big troubles understanding spoken English, you'll have to get an extra training book. That is the big minus when buying this product. Everything else is great.

This book is pitched above the level of the actual TOEFL test, is extremely dense and contains numerous examples of unhelpful vocabulary that only serve to confuse the student. Unless a student is of advanced level and is aiming on scoring over 600 on TOEFL it's not a good idea to study from this book. I taught from the Cambridge Preparation book for a year and felt that it was more a hindrance than a help in preparing intermediate level students to score above 500 in the exam.

I am an ESL teacher and I teach courses in TOEFL preparation. In my opinion, most of the sections of this book do not accurately represent TOEFL test questions. The authors do not seem to have had an in-depth understanding of the writing and speaking scoring rubric, or an understanding of how the listening and reading questions are composed. I do not recommend this book to anyone planning to take the TOEFL test.

First, in the reading section, while their are many good examples of academic text, the actual questions and answer choices in the book are not composed the same way as the real TOEFL questions. Therefore, a student using these questions to practice is often practicing skills that are not tested on the real test, or is wasting time trying to answer questions that would never be asked on a TOEFL test. Worse, in many cases the answer choices do not contain a clear, correct answer, regardless of what the answer key claims. In some cases, the answer choices are too vague or, I believe, simply incorrect. Also, the authors have divided up the section into the different types of questions that can be asked, but with little rhyme or reason, as they have lumped questions into the inference section which are clearly not inference questions (and not considered inference questions by the test makers), and ignored some other types of questions.

The listening section is slightly better, but the book does not come with the listening CD's, so the student will not be able to use this section. Nevertheless, there are quite a few places in the listening where the questions do not accurately represent TOEFL questions, although to the inexperienced eye the format appears similar.

The speaking section is quite sparse and offers little useful advice to the student. There are no samples available on CD of how different score levels will sound.

I did not use the writing section at all, so cannot comment on the exercises there, but the explanation of the scoring rubric and the sample papers shown in the book do not reflect an understanding of how TOEFL papers are actually scored. You will find much better samples that give a much more accurate idea of what a high or low scoring essay looks like in the book published by ETS.

Finally, the book is loaded up with "supporting skills" exercises, which seems like a good idea, except that often the skills practiced will not be found on the actual test. Moreover, the questions and answer choices in the exercises are so carelessly done that there are many instances of answers which don't make sense, choices that are too similar and too vague, and questions which don't use the skill one is supposedly practicing.

And one more thing - the book is overly large and not at all user friendly. It's hard to find anything in it, and sometimes the exercises that go with certain materials are located at the end of the unit instead of directly after the material.

One of the few good things about this book is the ETS scoring rubrics and scoring instructions provided in the front of the book, which allow you to figure out your TOEFL score. Also, it is useful to have actual computerized practice tests that reflect the testing conditions and can give the student practice with the real test format.

Other than that, I really don't like this book and would never willingly use it again for a TOEFL class.

This book was really good for me, the author knows very well how to write to learners.

I've went through this book and worked on all the practice test on the disk, it really helped me to understand the test format in real test condition and provided concentrated review material in different sections. The only drawback will be the tapes included are too clear, which is really different from the real test (it's a bit muffle in the real test) lucky I went through the free toefl practice test material available on the toefl website on the day I took the test and realise that. Anyway, I got 280 points with the help of the book..really satisfy with the result! It's worth to try.

It is well-organized.

Beginning practice is excessively useful. Also, Listening, Speaking, and Writing practice are helpful.(If you wanna practice Listening, you have to buy extra audio CDs... but it surely is helpful. It contains different types of accent such as British, Australian.)

However, as for reading practice, I cannot recommend this 'cause it's totally different from real the iBT TOEFL test. I cannot accept this book's practice style.

In conclusion, people who want to improve;
1) Listening
2) Speaking
3) Writing(including Grammer practice)

this book helps you.

I have very positive feelings about this book.

I was required to take the TOEFL test by the time of January 2010 by the college I applied to. I have been studying English for about 10 years and during the last two I am using it as a primary language in school.

Knowing only very roughly what the TOEFL looks like I began my preparation about a week before the exam. Sounds like very little time, but ultimately I scored 105 points (120 is maximum in the iBT). I'm proud of my score and it more than enough for my college appliaction. This Cambridge book was a large help here. It talks about each section and each question type in great detail, but you still can feel why each of these details matter and why knowing them can help you.

I strongly suggest buying the version of the book with CD-ROM and 8 audio CDs (the one which costs $89). The audio CDs contain quite big amount of listening and speaking exercises.

One more thing: in my view, the most difficult part of the TOEFL iBT is speaking. Prepare well for it by recording yourself and paying attention to time. Attached CD-ROM with a program that simulates the test is very helpful here. Not only here, actually - it makes you feel comfortable with the test interface, which is important.

OK, this book comes without Audio CDs. But I already knew this when I bought it. The supporting skills chapter is not very useful and the book tends to be boring after some reading. BUT it has a very good writing section and (the best) it has 7 computer tests on the CD that accompanies it. I took the TOEFL yesterday and I can say that these were the tests that most accurately reflected the actual experience. I have tried Kaplan's, Barron's and Longman's tests, but these were no match. Although I can't highly recommend the book itself, the Practice Tests are a MUST have.