{"id":1528,"date":"2015-03-30T09:00:29","date_gmt":"2015-03-30T16:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/?p=1528"},"modified":"2020-12-10T13:46:16","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T21:46:16","slug":"book-review-oxford-preparation-course-for-the-toefl-ibt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/book-review-oxford-preparation-course-for-the-toefl-ibt\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Oxford Preparation Course for the TOEFL iBT"},"content":{"rendered":"

(NOTE:<\/strong> The TOEFL books that Magoosh reviews and recommends reflect the older, pre-August 2019 version of the test. As of this writing, there are no TOEFL prep books that reflect the newest version of the test. Fortunately, older-format books are still very useful in prepping for the current TOEFL. For details on this, see Magoosh’s tutorial on using older prep for the 2019 TOEFL<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to say one thing immediately: this book is not for self-study. If you already have it, then you might use it, but don\u2019t buy it to study by yourself. There are better books for that, at this price.<\/p>\n

Oxford<\/em> is definitely a classroom<\/strong> book. So this review will have a slightly different focus than some of my other reviews, because in every other review I have been writing about whether a book is good for self-study. But if you are a teacher, you should definitely consider this book. This review is for you.<\/p>\n

Report Card:<\/h2>\n

Authenticity of practice material: D
\nAmount of practice material: B+
\nQuality of explanations: B+
\nSkill building material: A-
\nTest strategy and advice: B-
\nClassroom use: A-<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

TOEFL Practice Material<\/h2>\n

I\u2019ve always loved the idiom \u201cdouble-edged sword.\u201d It captures so well how something that might be an advantage can also be dangerous or even harmful. Oxford Preparation<\/em> is a fantastic example of exactly that. The main reason this is clearly a classroom book is that it aims to create conversation. The best English books do this, because we learn much, much faster when we are actually using<\/em> a language, not just studying it. That\u2019s why most English books have conversation activities based on reading exercises. That way, students first practice their reading skills\u2014possibly learning new words and becoming more familiar with native English grammar\u2014then practice both listening and speaking. Now, imagine you are an author of an English book, and you need to write a text that creates conversation. What starts people talking? And keep in mind that although books can be modified and re-released with new material, most cannot use purely topical texts. What\u2019s newsworthy today might not be relevant tomorrow. One of the themes that authors often rely on, then, is controversy. If a topic is controversial, students will likely have opinions on them.<\/p>\n

Oxford<\/em> relies heavily on controversy to create conversation. Take, for example, a reading passage titled \u201cFast-Food Addiction.\u201d It\u2019s clearly opinionated, even if you haven\u2019t read a word of the actually passage. A title like that would never be on the real TOEFL. And that\u2019s the problem that feeds into Oxford<\/em>\u2019s advantage. If you are a TOEFL teacher, it can be extremely hard to create natural conversation in class, because the topics on the real test are designed not to be controversial. They are almost completely objective and\/or neutral. There are some exceptions in the speaking tasks and in the independent essay, of course\u2014after all, test-takers need to give opinions in those tasks. But the reading and listening sections, as well as the lectures before speaking or writing tasks, are very, very dry. You cannot start an engaging conversation about how whales evolved their blowholes. You can only look at the facts.<\/p>\n

So to be perfectly clear, Oxford Preparation<\/em> does not have authentic material<\/strong>. It\u2019s actually quite far from the real test. But that sacrifice gives it an advantage no other book has in the classroom. If you are a teacher, that makes it very attractive.<\/p>\n

I should also mention that the questions aren\u2019t quite right, nor is the format of the practice material. Many of the questions ask about overly specific details; reading exercises almost always have one fewer question than they should; some wrong answers are too close to correct, and even more correct answers are clearly flawed; there are fill-in-the-table questions at the end of every<\/em> listening exercise, whereas on the real TOEFL they\u2019re very rare; lectures and conversations before speaking tasks often include too many separate details; etc. Many of these problems abound in other books, too, so don\u2019t think that Oxford<\/em> has the worst material available. But in terms of mimicking the official test, Oxford<\/em> is definitely not the best. It doesn\u2019t even include normal full-length tests. The two that are near the end of the book are stuffed with classroom exercises, which makes them awkward for single-sitting, full-length training.<\/p>\n

But again, I cannot stress enough how valuable the class-centric pair and group exercises are. So in a way, I don\u2019t mind that they made the \u201cpractice tests\u201d unusable as just that. After all, you can always supplement with the book of official practice tests<\/a> and the Official Guide<\/a><\/em> for full-length tests in a classroom.<\/p>\n

Skill Practice<\/h2>\n

What Oxford<\/em> lacks in quality of material, it makes up for in approach to the material. Much like the Complete Guide<\/em>, Oxford<\/em> takes individual skills and works them into test-like practice exercises. (By contrast, Cambridge Preparation<\/em> isolates the skills from the test a bit, so that skill-building practice might be fill-in-the-blanks or other similar types of exercises.) And it stays focused on some of the most important supporting skills, such as note-taking, vocabulary, and scanning texts.<\/p>\n

The focus on vocabulary in particular is spot on. In each chapter, there is a word list with an associated conversation activity, then those words are used repeatedly in the following reading and listening material and returned to in more vocabulary exercises.<\/p>\n

If you are looking for a book that singles out specific background skills into discrete exercises, Oxford<\/em> may not be the best choice. But if you want those skills integrated into longer lesson plans that also teach test strategy and leave room for pair and group activities, this book is a strong contender.<\/p>\n

Explanations<\/h2>\n

Unlike many books, this one does address wrong answers as well as correct ones. They\u2019re rarely very in-depth, mind you, but those explanations are there, and that counts for something.<\/p>\n

Within speaking and writing lessons, there are a good number of sample responses, although not every task has one, and speaking tasks don\u2019t get many recorded samples. But then again, in a classroom, there is no end to the number of samples taken from student you can use for editing and commentary. The sample responses in the book are generally \u201cideal\u201d style, so students can learn to mimic them. Paired with the generally imperfect responses collected from students, you can get a good mix of different sample-response activities.<\/p>\n

Test Strategy and Advice<\/h2>\n

Near the start of the book, there are lists of test-taking tips that are decent, but they\u2019re not returned to many times later during practice material. In general, I get the impression that Susan Bates, the author of Oxford Preparation<\/em>, hasn\u2019t worked closely with many TOEFL students, because there isn\u2019t a strong focus on the common problems that students have with the format of the test (e.g. timing). But there is advice here, and none of it is bad, so even if this isn\u2019t a major advantage of the book, it\u2019s not a notable flaw, either. I will say that the sample notes are completely unrealistic, though\u2014they\u2019re often twice as long as what student can actually do, and that can be very dangerous. Encouraging that students take too many notes almost guarantees that they will miss some details because they\u2019re too busy writing.<\/p>\n

The Final Word<\/h2>\n

To date, I don\u2019t know of any TOEFL book that works better in a classroom than does Oxford TOEFL<\/em>. But bear in mind you will have to supplement, even in that classroom setting\u2014you need more test-like material to show students exactly what they will be facing on test day. Oxford<\/em> does not represent that well at all.<\/p>\n

If you’d rather study online with lesson videos and practice questions (like the real TOEFL iBT!), be sure to check out Magoosh TOEFL<\/a>, too!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(NOTE: The TOEFL books that Magoosh reviews and recommends reflect the older, pre-August 2019 version of the test. As of this writing, there are no TOEFL prep books that reflect the newest version of the test. Fortunately, older-format books are still very useful in prepping for the current TOEFL. For details on this, see Magoosh’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13602],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[13628],"class_list":["post-1528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prep"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBook Review: Oxford Preparation Course for the TOEFL iBT<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Oxford Preparation Course for the TOEFL iBT is an excellent prep-book for TOEFL classroom teachers, but not an ideal resource for self-study students.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/book-review-oxford-preparation-course-for-the-toefl-ibt\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" 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