Cambridge Preparation for the TOEFL(R) Test Book /

 (31 customer reviews)

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...Read more

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.

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...Read more