{"id":367,"date":"2014-03-31T09:00:16","date_gmt":"2014-03-31T16:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/?p=367"},"modified":"2020-12-10T13:47:15","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T21:47:15","slug":"kaplan-toefl-ibt-premier-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/kaplan-toefl-ibt-premier-book-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Kaplan TOEFL iBT Premier Book Review"},"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

\"Kaplan<\/a>The first 20 minutes I spent with Kaplan\u2019s book<\/a> were great. Yes, I found a few mistakes, but mostly I was excited to have a book that describes realistic, good test strategy. And I knew it wasn\u2019t just the book\u2014you get access to online material, too. But three days later, I was really, really disappointed. To say it simply, this book isn\u2019t for students.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Test Strategy and Advice<\/h2>\n

Let\u2019s start with the good part of the book.<\/p>\n

If you follow all of the advice in this book, you will answer the questions on the TOEFL effectively. I agreed strongly with almost every sentence I read. The author gives realistic descriptions and advice. For example, vocabulary questions in the reading section are mostly just a test of whether you know the word. Context can help sometimes, but that\u2019s not the main point. Many books don\u2019t recognize that, but Kaplan\u2019s book does.<\/p>\n

Another point that many other books miss is how detailed notes should be. You simply cannot take very detailed notes. If you do, you won\u2019t be able to listen at the same time. Kaplan recognizes that and tells you the truth: take notes, but focus on listening<\/i>, not writing. I was very happy to see that. And there\u2019s a lot more good strategy\u2014it\u2019s very rare that this book gives bad strategy. There is some misinformation, though. The author recommends knowing scientific facts like the periodic table<\/a>, but that\u2019s a waste of time. You won\u2019t need that on your TOEFL.<\/p>\n

Besides that, some of the wrong answer types (The book calls them \u201cdistractors\u201d) are more like GRE, SAT, or GMAT questions. That is, they are wrong because of logic tricks, not language tricks. That\u2019s misleading, but being careful about the logic of answer choices will never hurt you; it\u2019s just not very important. And because the most of the strategy is realistic and helpful, I can forgive some inaccuracies.<\/p>\n

There is only one serious problem with the test strategy in this book. The language isn\u2019t friendly. It\u2019s a bit too advanced for some students to read comfortably and understand everything. That might be good reading practice, a challenge, but the book should communicate<\/i> to everybody, not just be practice. And it\u2019s not only that: there is a lot<\/i> of text and description in that advanced English. It will be boring and difficult for many students to read.<\/p>\n

In other words, it\u2019s not good for learning to use<\/i><\/b> the strategies, only learning about<\/i> the strategies. This makes the book better for new teachers rather than students. And even for teachers, it\u2019s not great. The organization of the book is very strange and hard to follow. For instance, here are two strategies from the writing chapter:<\/p>\n