{"id":343,"date":"2014-03-12T15:56:41","date_gmt":"2014-03-12T22:56:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/?p=343"},"modified":"2020-12-10T13:47:17","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T21:47:17","slug":"the-princeton-reviews-cracking-the-toefl-ibt-2014-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/the-princeton-reviews-cracking-the-toefl-ibt-2014-book-review\/","title":{"rendered":"The Princeton Review&#8217;s Cracking the TOEFL iBT (2014) Book Review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(<strong>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&#8217;s tutorial on <a href=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/toefl-2019-format-changes-length-timing-scoring-and-preparation\/#oldprep\">using older prep for the 2019 TOEFL<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p><a><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/files\/2014\/03\/Cracking-the-TOEFL-iBT-Cover-Image.jpg\" alt=\"Cracking the TOEFL iBT Cover Image\" width=\"208.58\" height=\"270\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1431\" align=\"left\" style=\"padding-right: 10px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/files\/2014\/03\/Cracking-the-TOEFL-iBT-Cover-Image.jpg 309w, https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/files\/2014\/03\/Cracking-the-TOEFL-iBT-Cover-Image-232x300.jpg 232w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 309px) 100vw, 309px\" \/><\/a>First, let me say that the title of <a>this book<\/a> really bothers me. The TOEFL cannot be \u201ccracked.\u201d You can prepare for it, yes, but you cannot learn some quick tips and tricks to get a high score. This is a mostly a test of your English experience.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">I know, I know\u2014that\u2019s the title of all Princeton Review\u2019s books. That makes it worse, in some ways, because no test is as simple as the title implies. But it\u2019s especially a problem for the TOEFL, in my opinion.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">I don\u2019t mean that there are no test-taking strategies or TOEFL-specific tips you should learn. <a href=\"https:\/\/toefl.magoosh.com\/?utm_source=TOEFLBlog&amp;utm_medium=BlogPost&amp;utm_campaign=InText\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> There definitely are some.<\/a> But to say that they\u2019ll help you to \u201ccrack\u201d the test is an exaggeration or, worse, a lie.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">But that\u2019s just the title. What about the actual book?<\/p>\n<h1>TOEFL Practice Material<\/h1>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Most TOEFL iBT books on the market rely on the number of practice questions and tests to be popular. With that in mind, it\u2019s deeply surprising to me that Princeton Review doesn\u2019t seem to care. In fact, they seem proud of having little practice material: there\u2019s a huge \u201c1\u201d on the front cover. No, not to mean that they\u2019re \u201cnumber 1,\u201d the best, but to mean that they only have one practice test in the book! For context, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/the-official-guide-to-the-toefl-test-fourth-edition-book-review\/\">the Official Guide<\/a> <\/em>includes three practice tests, <a href=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/cambridge-preparation-for-the-toefl-test-book-review\/\">Cambridge\u2019s book <\/a>comes with seven practice tests, and <a href=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/barrons-toefl-ibt-book-review\/\">Barron\u2019s<\/a> has five.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">But what exactly is there one of? The cover says it\u2019s a \u201cfull-length simulated TOEFL iBT test.\u201d Well, that\u2019s almost right. There\u2019s only a paper practice test in the book; there\u2019s no CD, no computer-based practice test. That\u2019s not a very good simulation.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">So if you\u2019re a careful buyer, you might be thinking that there\u2019s a lot of other practice material in the book not in the full-length test format. That would be similar to <em><a href=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/the-complete-guide-to-the-toefl-test-book-review\/\">The Complete Guide<\/a><\/em>. And that\u2019s partly true; there are other practice questions in the skill-building and test-strategy sections of the book. But still, there are too few. For example, there are 14 reading passages total in this book. By way of comparison, The Complete Guide has around 40.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Okay, so the quantity isn\u2019t enough. What about the quality of these questions? If the practice is perfect, then it might still be worth the money.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Most of the reading passages and questions are very close to the test, but many are too easy, and a few have clear, serious problems. Some have \u201cwrong\u201d answer choices that are arguably correct. These are especially common in the \u201cCracking the Reading Section\u201d part of the book. For example, the first example of a vocabulary question looks like this:<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><em>1. The word feasibility as used in the passage is closest in meaning to<\/em><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><em>(A) appropriateness<\/em><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><em>(B) reasonableness<\/em><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><em>(C) possibility<\/em><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"><em>(D) viability<\/em><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Answer choice (C) is too close to the actual definition of the word. Yes, \u201cviability\u201d is a better match, but you could plug in \u201cpossibility\u201d to the passage and have basically the same meaning. That\u2019s not very TOEFL-like.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Meanwhile, the recordings for the listening parts are much too fast on average and filled with idioms. The TOEFL does test idioms, and sometimes there are a few fast sentences, but real TOEFL lectures have more small pauses and rephrasing. Cracking the TOEFL iBT\u2019s recordings are too difficult. That does mean they\u2019re pretty good practice\u2014it\u2019s great to train with difficult material\u2014but you\u2019ll also need accurate samples of the test from another book to know what you should expect.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h1>Skill Practice<\/h1>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The most valuable part of Cracking the iBT is in the section named \u201cCore Concepts,\u201d which is what I call skill practice. There are clear, easy to read explanations and helpful exercises for analyzing sentences, paragraphs, texts, and lectures. They focus heavily on understanding relationships between ideas, finding structural keywords, and simplifying complicated English.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">To be honest, the advice in \u201cCore Concepts\u201d is often too simplistic. Sometimes the examples have very clear, uncomplicated logical structures, so the exercises aren\u2019t similar to what you will do on test day. But if you are having a lot of trouble understanding the big ideas, and if you get confused and stuck on single, difficult sentences often, the exercises here are great. They are very good beginners material.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">That doesn\u2019t take into account grammar and <a href=\"http:\/\/toefl.magoosh.com\/flashcards\/vocabulary\">vocabulary improvement<\/a>. Neither are in this book. There are two pages of grammar, with no exercises. It looks like it was written by a 12-year-old who googled \u201cgrammar.\u201d There\u2019s a large table of \u201ccommonly misspelled words\u201d that just made me laugh. \u201cKhaki\u201d? Really? I promise that you will never see that word on the TOEFL or have a reason to use it.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h1>Test Strategies and Advice<\/h1>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Despite the big promise that the title makes, this book has very little advice that\u2019s specific to the TOEFL. The author is focused on general test-taking strategies and seems not to know about how the TOEFL is different.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">For example, the book focuses heavily on process of elimination. In both reading and listening, it recommends you look at every answer choice and try to find how or why it\u2019s wrong. This is sometimes useful on the TOEFL, but it\u2019s often unnecessary. If you understand the reading or recording, then the correct answer will be the only one that gives the same information.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">On the GRE, GMAT, or SAT, the wrong answers have logical mistakes. They assume information, make extreme statements, or draw connections between unrelated facts. In contrast, on the TOEFL, the wrong answers are usually wrong because of a language problem. The focus of a sentence is wrong, for instance, or the direction of an action is reversed.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The Princeton Review describes wrong answers on TOEFL in the same way they describe wrong answers on the other tests, and that\u2019s just wrong.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">There\u2019s a lot of other bad advice, too. My favorite is \u201cskim, don\u2019t read.\u201d This is a common mistake in TOEFL books. Trying not to read the passage will simply confuse you. It\u2019s absolutely necessary to read the whole passage. Yes, you\u2019ll need to move quickly past difficult sentences that you don\u2019t understand 100%, but you should read them and <em>try<\/em> to understand them. Skipping any information is a bad idea.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The advice to skim is based on the idea that TOEFL texts and recordings are very, very structured. On the one hand, it\u2019s true that structure is very important. On the other hand, it\u2019s not so simple, so clear as Cracking the TOEFL says. The big picture structures of the texts, lectures, and conversations will often be a little bit unclear, because the topic changes a bit. There is not a \u201cintro, body, conclusion\u201d structure all the time, even though this book says there is. Interestingly, the practice passages and recordings are pretty similar to the structures of real TOEFL material. But their strategies don\u2019t fit their samples.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">On the same note, the writing guide directs you to an overly simple essay. For a low-level student, this isn\u2019t bad, but following their advice if you\u2019re an advanced student (aiming for 100+) won\u2019t help you any.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">And finally, there\u2019s almost nothing about the clock in this book. Timing is extremely important on the TOEFL\u2014it\u2019s one of the biggest problems students face. But <em>Cracking the TOEFL<\/em> mostly ignores it. In fact, they even tell you that the reading section will be 60 <em>or<\/em> 100 minutes with \u201cthree or four\u201d passages. That\u2019s close, but not true, and it makes a very big difference. You\u2019ll have <a href=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/meet-the-toefl-reading-section\/\">60, 80, or 100 minutes for three, four, or five passages<\/a>; you get 20 minutes per passage. It\u2019s not possible to have 100 minutes for four passages. It seems like the author had no idea about how important timing is.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h1>Explanations<\/h1>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Besides the good skill-building exercises, this book has one other strong point: it\u2019s written in clear, casual, understandable language. The explanations of ideas and answers are well written.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">And there are explanations for everything in the book\u2014no answers standing by themselves without details. That\u2019s fantastic. Some of the explanations are too short\/uninformative (e.g. \u201cAnswer D is obviously incorrect\u201d) but it\u2019s better than many books offer.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">But that\u2019s really just true of the reading and listening sections. The writing sections have sample essays (very important!), which makes me happy, but they\u2019re very badly graded. What should be a 5, the highest grade, might be graded as a 4. And worse, what should be a 3 is graded as a 1. Again, this seems to be because the author is confusing the TOEFL with other tests. Although structure and message are important for the TOEFL, language use\u2014correct grammar and high-level vocabulary\u2014is more important. An essay that doesn\u2019t choose a side does not necessarily get a bad grade.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">It\u2019s good that they want you to focus on structuring your essay and making your message clear, but their scoring is not like the real TOEFL.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">And what about the speaking tasks? Sadly, there are no speaking samples. So that doesn\u2019t help much.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Report Card:<\/h2>\n<p><em>Authenticity of practice material: C+<br \/>\nAmount of practice material: D-<br \/>\nQuality of explanations: B-<br \/>\nSkill building material: B+<br \/>\nTest strategy and advice: D<\/em><br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h1>The Final Word<\/h1>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">If I recommended this book to anybody, it would be to a low-level student who\u2019s very scared of the length and language level of the reading passage, and it would be just for the \u201cCore Concepts\u201d section of the book.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">But really, I wouldn\u2019t recommend it for anything else.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(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&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/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-343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prep"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v21.7 (Yoast SEO v21.7) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Princeton Review&#039;s Cracking the TOEFL iBT (2014) Book Review - Magoosh Blog \u2013 TOEFL\u00ae\ufe0f Test<\/title>\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\/the-princeton-reviews-cracking-the-toefl-ibt-2014-book-review\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Princeton Review&#039;s Cracking the TOEFL iBT (2014) Book Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"(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&#8217;s [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/the-princeton-reviews-cracking-the-toefl-ibt-2014-book-review\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Magoosh Blog \u2013 TOEFL\u00ae\ufe0f Test\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/facebook.com\/MagooshTOEFL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-03-12T22:56:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-12-10T21:47:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/files\/2014\/03\/Cracking-the-TOEFL-iBT-Cover-Image.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Lucas Fink\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@MagooshTOEFL\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@MagooshTOEFL\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Lucas Fink\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/the-princeton-reviews-cracking-the-toefl-ibt-2014-book-review\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/the-princeton-reviews-cracking-the-toefl-ibt-2014-book-review\/\",\"name\":\"The Princeton Review's Cracking the TOEFL iBT (2014) Book Review - Magoosh Blog \u2013 TOEFL\u00ae\ufe0f Test\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-03-12T22:56:41+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/#\/schema\/person\/c06e6a007d0b81117c00610ed88b6c7d\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/the-princeton-reviews-cracking-the-toefl-ibt-2014-book-review\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/the-princeton-reviews-cracking-the-toefl-ibt-2014-book-review\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/the-princeton-reviews-cracking-the-toefl-ibt-2014-book-review\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Princeton Review&#8217;s Cracking the TOEFL iBT (2014) Book Review\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/\",\"name\":\"Magoosh Blog \u2013 TOEFL\u00ae\ufe0f Test\",\"description\":\"Online TOEFL Preparation\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/#\/schema\/person\/c06e6a007d0b81117c00610ed88b6c7d\",\"name\":\"Lucas Fink\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/23cc892a81aad0b2904e4f690b7e865a\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f798c830d96fa5dd3ad9b315d568569879bff638b794899ecd3c8ce9f5fa932b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f798c830d96fa5dd3ad9b315d568569879bff638b794899ecd3c8ce9f5fa932b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Lucas Fink\"},\"description\":\"Lucas is the teacher behind Magoosh TOEFL. He\u2019s been teaching TOEFL preparation and more general English since 2009, and the SAT since 2008. Between his time at Bard College and teaching abroad, he has studied Japanese, Czech, and Korean. 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