TOEFL iBT. Internet-Based Test 2008, 12th edition

I am an English instructor of ESL students, many who are preparing for the Toefl exam. I have reviewed 5 books myself before recommending students buy one. While this book appears to be well organized, WATCH OUT!!! It is loaded with typos and errors from the start.

For example, in the Model Test 1: Pretest, I counted 11 errors in just 5 pages!!!

For example, They indicate which paragraph to read, and have them numbered incorrectly (1 and 2 are ok, but they have questions for paragraph 5 and there are only 4 paragraphs!)

Vocabulary words on the test should be highlighted, but they missed one, so a student has to search for it in the paragraph, thus wasting valuable time for a timed test.

For the question asking the student to insert a sentence, the correct answer is "C" and the answer key has the correct answer as "B" - which is NOT correct!! Then they go on to say why B is correct, while explaining the answer response for...Read more

I agree with the previous comment about how daunting it is to pick the right book to purchase in the beginning - I chose the Barron's edition with audio CDs and McGraw Hill's ETS standard edition. The latter was helpful in evaluating one's own speaking level against real life examples, but the former was far superior in its content layout and diversity of subjects covered. In my opinion study tips & tricks will never be as effective as actually sitting model tests under simulated environment repetitively. I highly recommend running the full listening/speaking section all the way without stopping (except for the writing sections within those sections) as this will give you more rigorous practice than those offered in the actual test where you get to pause after each question.

I spent two weeks on this book and an afternoon skimming through official ETS test prep book, and scored 115 out of 120.

The book had adequate examples to practice, some good study tips and exam strategies. I got a 110 in my TOEFL exam. It was the most cost-efficient.

The most confusing thing while buying the book was Barron publishes 3 versions of this book - with audio CD, with CD ROM and only the book. The audio CD version contains audio for all listening sections but no computer-based tests / scoring. I believe the CD ROM version has that.


Other things that would be good to have:
- a feature to record your speaking section (available with Longman)
- a feature to record your written skills and get an automated evaluation.