Customer Reviews

How to Prepare for the TOEIC Test

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Barron’s How to Prepare for the TOEIC Test has both positive and negative points, but the negatives outweigh the positives. First off, the positives. (...) You get six complete TOEIC practice tests and a fair number of practice exercises for each of the seven sections. All of these exercises somewhat approximate an actual ETS TOEIC test. In addition, the author gives explanatory answers to the practice tests and exercises. However, this is where the positives of Barron’s book end. On the negative side, the author’s analysis of the construction of the TOEIC is very confusing. For example, his presentation of the material in the listening comprehension sections is less than helpful. It attempts to mix all four sections together which, in my opinion, doesn’t work well. Peterson’s TOEIC Success presents this listening material in a much clearer manner. In addition, the author’s analysis of Parts 5 and 6 (grammar) of the reading section leaves much to be desired. Simply put, the grammar points reviewed in the Barron’s book are not an exact reflection of the grammar you will find an actual TOEIC test. I do feel that the author’s analysis of Part 7, the reading comprehension section, is the stronger than his analysis of Parts 1-6. For Part 7, he provides a useful “question type chart” and realistic TOEIC-style reading passages. However, even here, there are problems: The reading passages are on the short side and there is an overabundance of chart-type passages. Overall, Barron’s How to Prepare for the TOEIC Test is not terrible, but mostly confusing and unenlightening. Buy this book if you want a lot of practice tests, but not as a way of giving you a full understanding of the construction of the TOEIC exam.

Last year, I bought this book because I needed to have a quick help to prepare myself for the TOEIC test. Within 4 days, this book let me know enough on the test : typical questions, grammar and possible cunning. I passed the test and get a good score. Thus, I succeed in getting a new job.

I am an ESL teacher using this book with students in Japan. I most like the large number of sample questions, including several full-length tests and accompanying CD's. One problem, though, is that Loughheed's explanations are difficult for even my advanced-level non-native speakers to understand. However, they are very helpful to me as a teacher in explaining how to solve problems. What I do is review his explanations myself before class, then use them as a tool to help teach things to my students as they work through the sample problems. The test section does not include a table giving a model TOEIC score. I wrote the author about this, and he said a conversion chart would be included in the next edition. He also kindly sent me a conversion chart.
Overall, it was a useful book and I will continue using it with future students.

I used this book when working on the TOEIC. The good part was that it does
comprehensively cover the test; the bad part is that it seems like it was written
in one week. Not very much depth, simplistic explanations, just a little superficial overall. I think there are better TOEIC books out there.

I want to know remember more words,because amount of my words is very important for TOEIC.