Michael Goodine reviewed TOEFL Power Vocab by Princeton Review (Firm)
Review of 'TOEFL Power Vocab' on 'GoodReads'
3 stars
TOEFL Vocabulary is a funny topic. I mostly teach TOEFL writing, and when I am working with students on their essays, I usually stress that they should not try to utilize advanced vocabulary in their essays. Instead, I usually encourage them to improve their writing score by using a wide range of easy words in their essays. Basically, the TOEFL e-rater, I believe, is more concerned with how many different words students use, rather than how difficult the words are. Obviously, of course, the vocabulary level matters to some extent, but I mostly encourage students to use words they already know. This means that they don’t really need a TOEFL vocabulary book.
Reading is a slightly different story. I think that studying vocabulary books is a great long-term strategy for students. Expanding their vocabulary is a great way to increase their comprehension of the reading passages. Probably the listening passages …
TOEFL Vocabulary is a funny topic. I mostly teach TOEFL writing, and when I am working with students on their essays, I usually stress that they should not try to utilize advanced vocabulary in their essays. Instead, I usually encourage them to improve their writing score by using a wide range of easy words in their essays. Basically, the TOEFL e-rater, I believe, is more concerned with how many different words students use, rather than how difficult the words are. Obviously, of course, the vocabulary level matters to some extent, but I mostly encourage students to use words they already know. This means that they don’t really need a TOEFL vocabulary book.
Reading is a slightly different story. I think that studying vocabulary books is a great long-term strategy for students. Expanding their vocabulary is a great way to increase their comprehension of the reading passages. Probably the listening passages too, now that I think about it.
By long-term I mean three months or more. If students have less than three months to prep for the test, they probably don’t need a vocabulary book either. It just won’t make a huge difference in such a short period of time.
So… is Princeton Review’s TOEFL Power Vocab a good vocabulary book?
Sort of.
At first glance I really wanted to like this book. It is really just 800 words (sorted alphabetically) with concise definitions and some short quizzes every few pages. It is free of any useless clutter. I would rather have 8000 words, but 800 seems to be as much as any book has nowadays (Kaplan includes about the same amount in [b:their vocabulary book|36373719|TOEFL Pocket Vocabulary 600 Words + 420 Idioms + Practice Questions|Kaplan Test Prep|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1511089377l/36373719.SX50.jpg|58060952].
The words are relevant, too. But the problem is that too many of them are way too easy. Most students who are already scoring 80 points and above will probably already know them. For instance, here are the words from a random page (172): suggest, suitable, summarize, summon, support, supposed, surpass, surprised, surrounded.
I wouldn’t exactly call those examples of “power” vocabulary.
Another random page (121): imply, important, impressive, inactive, incandescent, inconspicuous, increase, increasingly.
Another page (69): circumspect, circumstances, circumvent, clamor, classified, clearly, climactic, coincidence.
I think you get the point. Some of these words will really benefit students, but quite a few of them are just a waste of their time.
Best to just check if the book is suitable for your specific student(s).