Customer Reviews

Kaplan Essential Review For The TOEIC Exam 1997 w/Audio CD-ROM (Kaplan Toeic)

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Kaplan’s specialty is the GMAT and GRE exams. That is certainly clear when you work through their Essential Review for the TOEIC Exam. Out of all the TOEIC test preparation materials in print, this is one of the least effective books on the market. It gives a very superficial analysis of the TOEIC test, has a small number of practice exercises, and arranges everything on the page in a sloppy, confusing manner. Essential Review for the TOEIC does have some positives though. For example, the exercises in this book are not terribly written. They do somewhat approximate what you will find on actual TOEIC exam. In addition, Kaplan explains all of their answers in a clear and helpful manner. However, for (...), you get so little material that it is probably not worth the money. There is one practice test and a few practice exercises for each test section. The material in Essential Review for the TOEIC adds up to two practice tests, if that. That means you are paying (...) per test here, which is too much compared to other TOEIC test-prep books on the market. In addition, Kaplan’s book provides a fairly superficial analysis of the question types you will find on the TOEIC. It is nothing close to the analysis given in Peterson’s TOEIC Success. Finally, the presentation of Kaplan’s Essential Review for the TOEIC is messy to the point of distraction. The way the material is arranged on the page has an old time, pre-computer, even pre-twentieth century kind of feeling. If you can only buy one book for the TOEIC exam, I would recommend against Kaplan’s Essential Review for the TOEIC Exam (even if you can get it for (...) used). Go with Peterson’s TOEIC Success or ETS’ Official Test Preparation Guide rather than this one.

Kaplan has published a TOEIC prep. book that is up to its usual high professional standards. This book has been a great aid to all our students at the Naresuan University Language Centre. It is easy to use and understand. The material is well researched and the sample tests are quite close to the actual TOEIC. I strongly recomend this book.