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The teeming mass of humanity depicted here is nightmarish. This is truly the best depiction of "there are too many damn people" I've ever come across.

Anyways, this is an engrossing book. It fits into the fun "trapped in a twilight zone" sort of genre that I like so much. Like the regular world, but the regular rules of the universe are slightly askew.

I suppose the book gets bogged down a bit in the middle as Budai tries for the nth time to decode the language, especially since we can deduce that he will never figure it out. And as a few people have noted, the translation has a lot of typos. I don't mean translation errors, but actual typos. They are mostly present in the first third, which makes it feel like the publisher accidentally used a first draft of that section when the book went to press. Weird.

Barron’s TOEFL iBT is probably the best TOEFL book available that covers the whole test. However, I am hesitant to recommend it because it still has some errors, and students will need a teacher to tell them which parts of the book to ignore, or to supplement with other sources.

Let’s start by talking about the positive aspects of the book. The foremost of these is that the book is regularly updated. Author Pamela Sharpe has been working on this book since 1977 (!) and regularly revises its content. This means that it now matches the changes to the TOEFL introduced in 2019. A few editions ago (I think the 14th) almost all of the integrated writing questions in the book were replaced with more accurate questions. The 16th edition, meanwhile, introduced a brand new chapter containing eight one-hour practice tests. All of this compares favorably to competing books from Kaplan and Princeton Review. Those ones have been revised to reflect the new TOEFL from last year, but otherwise they are reprinted with the same junk content year after year. It is worth noting that since last year Barron’s has been a division of Kaplan. I hope that doesn’t affect future revisions.

Another positive aspect of the book is its wealth of practice material. There is a ton of stuff to practice with. The books has eight full model tests, eight mini practice tests and a bunch of illustrative questions. Compare that to the ONE practice test provided in the Princeton Review TOEFL book. As I will describe below, there are some errors and inaccuracies in these test, but even if you cut out the bad parts, you’ve still got way more practice material than any other book. Overall, I’d estimate that about 80% of the practice questions here are accurate. That compares very favorably to Kaplan, where only about 10% of the questions are accurate.

Finally, I must note that the new system being used for the online tests is beautiful. It is way better than anything being used elsewhere, including the Official Guide to the TOEFL. It is a breeze to jump between both sections and whole tests. You don’t have to spend 15 minutes clicking and waiting to skip through everything else if you just want to do the writing section. Not only that, but transcripts and separate MP3 downloads are available for all test questions. I wish all publishers could use something so elegant. Also, the man who reads the test instructions sounds a little bit like Sam Elliot.

Okay, let’s talk specifically about the content here. Beginning with…

Missing Audio Files

Yes, there are some missing audio files. Audio is missing for all of the integrated speaking questions in seven (of eight) practice tests. The audio files provided online by Barron’s cut off after the independent speaking question finishes. This problem is compounded by the fact that the practice tests all refer to audio track numbers… but Barron's no longer uses track numbers for delivering test content (they just link to MP3 files).

Reading Practice

I like the reading practice in the book. The articles are generally close to the proper length. I think they skew a bit too long, but only barely. Meanwhile, I checked the Flesch-Kincaid reading ease score for four random articles, and they came out at 28.4, 51.1, 43.2, 47.3 and 48. That is a bit easier than the real test, which I think averages closer to 30, but again I don’t think it is a big deal. I’m willing to accept some superficial differences when it comes to unofficial test prep. This kind of prep should be used for skill building, rather than for predicting scores.

The only problem I have with the reading practice here is that occasionally it contains inference or factual information questions where the student must use the whole passage to find the answer. That is, no specific paragraph is mentioned in the question (see page 389). That’s a problem, since the real test doesn’t use questions like that. If my student were using this book, I would tell them to just skip those and give themselves a “free point” for them.

Listening Practice

The listening is also pretty good. I know it has some superficial differences from the real test, but it is close enough to provide valuable practice for students. Passage lengths and difficulty levels seem appropriate, and the questions also match the real test.

Speaking Practice

Here’s where the book starts to suffer a bit.

I can recommend most of the independent speaking questions (type 1). They are good, although I did spot at least one obsolete “giving advice” style prompt (page 432).

Some of the type 2 questions are poor. Frequently, the reading part (announcement) fails to give reasons for the stated change. The announcements just describe the change with ample details. As a result, the conversations about the announcements don’t have reasons that directly match up with details from the reading. I guess these questions can still be used for skill-building practice, but it is just as easy to design proper questions, so I find this flaw frustrating. Also, there are some type 2 speaking questions where instead of a conversation between two students, the opinion is expressed by a solo speaker (page 496), in monologue form. This has never been used on the test, so it shouldn’t appear here.

The type 3 questions here tend to be needlessly complicated. I’ll share a few examples to show you what I mean. Here are some prompts from type 3 questions direct from ETS:

-Explain how the example in the lecture illustrates the concept of scope creep.
-Explain how the example from the professor’s lecture illustrates the irrational commitment.
-Explain how the example in the lecture illustrates agnostic behavior.
-Using the example of the macaw from the lecture, explain the concept of flagship species.
-Using the examples of mice and rabbits from the lecture, describe the two different types of factors that can cause population changes.

Do you see the pattern? The real test asks you to use the given example(s) to illustrate a concept. That’s it. In contrast, Barron’s asks things like:

-Using the points and examples from the reading, explain the differences between myths and legends. Then refer to the lecture to explain why Paul Bunyan would be considered a legend (page 574).

This is too complicated and specific. Often, the lectures here are descriptive in nature instead of focusing on examples of something.

On the real test, Type 4 prompts look something like this:

-Using the example of the mole, explain the two different types of underground adaptation.
-Using points and examples from the talk, describe two changes that occurred after machines began to be used for manufacturing goods.

Again, they are very specific. They just ask the student to use examples to illustrate a concept But in Barron’s, you might see something like:

-Using the main points and examples from the lecture, describe the three parts of a fax machine and then explain how the fax process works (page 692).
-Using the main points and examples from the lecture, define a planet and explain why Pluto is no longer considered a planet (page 731).

You can see how the real test asks students to summarize specific examples of some concept, while Barron’s is asking students for a whole lot more. It is also using two-part question prompts, which the real test does not do.

I guess what I’m saying here is don’t use this book for speaking practice. You are better off just getting the two Official IBT Tests books from ETS. Together, those will give you ten full tests. Toss in the Official Guide to the TOEFL and you’ll have 14 full tests. That’s more than enough.

Writing Practice

Proper TOEFL integrated writing questions have a fixed format. The reading has an introduction, and three body paragraphs. The introduction presents an overall argument, and each body paragraph represents a specific supporting point or reason. The lecture matches this format. It begins by introducing the main argument, and continues by challenging each of the body paragraphs (and in the same order). If your practice questions don’t have this format, they should be replaced with some that do.

While the revisions to the 14th edition massively improved this part of the book, there are still a few integrated writing questions that don’t match the proper structure. Surprisingly, most of these are contained in the new chapter of one-hour practice tests. Very briefly, here’s a list that will guide you.

Use these integrated writing questions:

Model Test 1
Model Test 2
Model Test 3 (but note the missing into. paragraph)
Model Test 4 (but note the missing into. paragraph)
Model Test 5
Model Test 6
Model Test 7
Model Test 8 (but note the missing intro. paragraph)

Do not use these ones:

Practice Test 1
Practice Test 4
Practice Test 8

What I mean about tests 3, 4 and 8 is that the reading part is missing a proper introductory paragraph. They just have three body paragraphs. That’s a strange omission, but I guess they are still usable. If I were teaching with this book I would just write an introduction for each and paste them into my student’s book.

The independent writing questions are mostly fine. I did spot a few obsolete “describe a thing” questions like in model tests 5 and 7. There might be a few more.

Other Stuff

While practice questions make up the bulk of the book, there are a few other things, and some of them are quite valuable. I like the ten pages focused on “campus vocabulary.” I don’t know exactly how helpful that stuff really is, but a student with a medium or long-term study plan should certainly spend a few hours review key terminology. There is also a beefy chapter on grammar and style issues that highlights the most common errors made by students. It is something I wish I could create for my own website.

The Final Word

So that’s the review. I guess my advice is to use this book for skill-building practice, but to just forget about the speaking questions. You should also be aware of the minor problems present in the reading and writing sections. I also encourage students to go beyond this book, and to supplement with some official publications so you get a clearer picture of what the actual test looks like.

(Originally published on TOEFL Resources)

Regular readers of my reviews will know that I am not particularly enthusiastic about TOEFL vocabulary books (I think it is probably better to just study the Academic Word List), but McGraw-Hill’s “400 Must-Have Words for the TOEFL Test” (2014) is a book I’m happy to recommend to students.

What you get here are 41 chapters, each containing a themed list of 10 words with detailed definitions and practice exercises (fill-in-the-blanks, matching). The last page of each chapter contains a paragraph “excerpted” from a larger TOEFL reading and two accompanying questions . What sets this book apart from, say, Barron’s TOEFL Vocabulary is that these questions are not just vocabulary style questions. Instead, all of the TOEFL reading question types are represented. Those, specifically, make this a valuable study resource for anyone preparing for the TOEFL reading section.

The lists themselves are meant to represent the various topics used in the writing of the reading passages on the TOEFL. The authors have included a few topics that probably don’t ever appear on the test (spirituality and ghosts) but most of them are relevant. The words themselves are a mix of those which are mostly just used in discussion of the given topic, but also words used beyond the given topic. That means that the list in the chapter on agriculture contains the words “irrigation” and “photosynthesis” but also the words “adversely” and “aggregate.”

The vocabulary here seems to be a bit more challenging than words in the aforementioned Barron’s book, and are much more challenging than those in the Princeton Review’s TOEFL Power Vocab. That’s a good thing!

Note that the second edition is quite similar to the first edition. The main difference seems to be the addition of a single chapter on “Parenting.” There may be some revisions to the other chapters, but I didn’t look that closely.

Originally appeared on TOEFL Resources.

This is an updated version of what used to be called "Cracking the TOEFL." The new name is better, but sadly this isn’t a very good book. It is inaccurate, and it badly needs a good editor. And some basic research. I’ll go into detail about what is bad about the book in a moment, but I guess we should start with the good, right?

The Good Stuff

The book begins with about 170 pages of skill building exercises connected to the “core concepts” of the TOEFL (reading, listening, speaking, writing). This stuff is pretty good. I really like that the book begins with a whole lot of academic reading practice and questions that students can work through to hone their reading skills. None of these questions are actually TOEFL questions (which could be confusing) but they are about content contained in TOEFL-style articles. A lot of students need to really improve their reading skills before they even start looking at real TOEFL questions.

The core concepts stuff about listening is much sparser (9 pages vs 72 pages) but those nine pages are fine. I can’t help shake the feeling that Princeton Review made this section short just because creating listening content is much more expensive than creating reading content. Maybe I’m just crazy.

The speaking concepts chapter is a bit weird in that it blends TOEFL speaking questions with questions that are totally not TOEFL speaking questions. It also includes some of the speaking question styles that were removed from the test last year. I know this is just skill building stuff, but those should be totally excised from the book and replaced with something a bit more useful.

The writing concepts chapter is, again, a mix of TOEFL and non-TOEFL questions. It has some fine exercises. It includes a chart of useful vocabulary (which is nice) and a laughably basic page on grammar terms (which is not nice).

There are better books containing this sort of skill building content, but I honestly would recommend these chapters to a student who can find the book for free at a library or something. They have some value, especially for beginners.

The Bad Stuff

Cracking the Reading Section

The chapter about the reading section is really hard to follow, even for a teacher like myself. There are ten pages of junk before we can find a list reading question types. And sadly, the question types listed in the book are just wrong. So much clarity could have been achieved by using the question type names established by ETS in the “Official Guide to the TOEFL.” I mean… ETS makes the test so we should follow their lead on this!

For some reason, Princeton Review left out the “Factual Information” question type and the “Rhetorical Purpose” type, combining them into something they call a “Lead Words” question… which is different from a “Vocabulary in Context” question. To make matters worse, this type is inexplicably renamed “lead word/detail” near the end of the chapter. They’ve also left the “Fill in a Table” type out of their list, even though such a question appears later in one of their drills! Finally, they’ve added two types, the “Definition” (which, again, is not the same as a vocabulary question) type and the “Before/after” type, which aren’t used on the real test.

There are a few other little inaccuracies in their samples and drills. For instance, many of the questions lack clear references to paragraph numbers, meaning students have to hunt through the whole reading to find the answer to their question (which is not the case on the real test). They’ve also failed to end each of the reading sets with a fill-in-a-table question or a summary question. Each reading set on the real test always ends with one of those. Just a bit of basic research could have helped the authors avoid these problems.

Cracking the Listening Section

This section is actually okay. The listening passages and questions are fine. They are not perfect, but are good enough to be of value. There are no table questions, though. And the authors failed to move the questions where a chunk of audio is played to the end of each set. The latter issue is not a big deal, but it is something that could have been fixed, again, with just a tiny bit of research.

Cracking the Speaking Section

Curiously, this section begins with a ton of additional skill building content. And a lot of it is very unlike the actual TOEFL. The book repeatedly refers to a speaking question about how a lecture casts doubt on a reading. I just don’t know where they got that from.

There are some templates. They are mediocre.

All of the sample type 2 speaking questions are inaccurate. They tend to lack reasons for the changes being announced in the reading part. This means that the students in the listening part are mentioning details and responding to details that are not in the reading. On the real test there is a very strict and close connection between the reading and the listening. Two reasons are always given in the reading, and the student specifically responds to those two reasons when supporting their opinion. Again… just reading all ten of the samples from the official iBT books would have informed the authors at Princeton Review of this pattern.

The sample type 3 speaking questions are also inaccurate. On the real test, the prompt given to the test-taker will be something like: “Explain CONCEPT using EXAMPLES FROM LECTURE.” Or some variation. Basically, the test-taker needs to state what the concept from the reading is, and then needs to just repeat the example (or examples) from the lecture. Nothing more than that. In this book, though, the prompts are weirdly specific. Like:

“The professor discussed the characteristics of two kinds of heart valves. Explain how their characteristics are related to their suitability for younger and older transplant patients.”

Like… huh? Where did they get that?

Cracking the Writing Section

The template provided for the integrated essay made me want to tear my hair out. It recommends just two body paragraphs. It says that the first body paragraph should deal with the first reading point and the contrasting point from the lecture. The second body paragraph should deal with the second reading point and the contrasting point from the lecture. And the third point from the reading? Well, that isn’t mentioned. The authors seem to be aware that there is always a third reading point and a contrasting lecture point… but they’ve just ignored that in the template. All of the sample essays include that content… but the template does not. As I said, an editor is needed.

More evidence than an editor is needed is the fact that instead of providing a step by step guide for constructing each of the essay tasks, this books provides a step by step guide for both, and just jumps back and forth. WHY?

The book has some good independent essay prompts, but like the authors at Kaplan, they seem to think that only agree/disagree prompts are used. Again… research is needed.

The Practice Test

There is a single practice test. It contains the same inaccuracies as the “cracking” chapters, described above.

Overall

This isn’t a great book. I don’t really recommend it.

This review originally appeared on TOEFL Resources.

This is a really wonderful book that shines a light on an important period of computer gaming history that is quickly slipping from memory. A lot of people put a lot of work into Macintosh games in the 80s and 90s and it is great to have their stories told and recorded.

The book is mainly a collection of histories of companies and people. It provides an overview of the rise and fall of companies like Ambrosia, Freeverse and Pangea... but also those tells the stories of interesting individuals like John Calhoun (Glider) and Cliff Johnson (The Fool's Errand). These stories are told using research conducted by the author and a great number of detailed interviews with the people involved. The number of people Moss was able to talk to while putting together this book is quite impressive.

The design of the book is gorgeous, and it really highlights the sort of pop-art that Mac games from the time gave us.

A good index is included, in case you are looking for something specific.

Another year and another bad edition of TOEFL Prep Plus by Kaplan.

There are four problems with this book every year. They are:

1. It isn’t updated very much.
2. It needlessly complicates the test.
3. The practice questions and sample are terribly inaccurate.
4. The online resources are not as promised
5. I’ll deal with these one at a time.

First of all, though this is the “2020-20201” edition of the book, it is pretty much the same as the 2008-2009 edition from 11 years ago.

The online content seems even older, and looks to be the same stuff that was on the CD-ROM of the 2007-2008 edition. The publisher has deleted the stuff that was dropped from the test this year, but everything else (the strategies and the samples) is almost entirely the same. The contents badly need to be replaced with new material, especially the samples which don’t reflect what students get on the actual test. The samples were bad even when the book was first published, but now that a decade has passed, the errors are much less forgivable.

Secondly, the book is way too complicated. The book includes 69 strategies for mastering the reading section. I counted another 69 numbered strategies for the writing section (not to mention the fact that number 16 is broken down into 16A through 16E). That’s just too much crap. This aspect of the book needs be culled.

Thirdly, and most importantly, the questions in the book are inaccurate. As always, that’s the aspect I want to focus on most of all in this review. Let’s get started.

Reading

The book starts out okay with a few decent samples of articles used in the reading section (pages 19, 25), but then pairs these with inaccurate sample questions. Instead of matching a question with a specific paragraph, students are required to read through the whole article looking for the paragraph that matches the given question. This becomes a major problem on page 32 when a NOT/EXCEPT style question refers to details that are actually spread out over three paragraphs. That means the student is actually required to use all three paragraphs to answer the question, rather than using just a single paragraph as on the real test. This is replicated on page 54 where students have to look through four long paragraphs to properly answer an inference question that would be specific to only a single paragraph on the real test.

It should also be mentioned that beyond the problems with question designs, most of the sample articles are somewhat weak overall. On pages 35, 51, 66 and 94 students are given articles that are generally longer than the real test, and with fewer paragraphs. This means that the paragraphs are really long, some stretching out to about 300 words. This bothers me as students really need to become familiar with hunting for answers in short but dense paragraphs.

Listening

This is probably the strongest section of the book. The conversations and lectures are about the same length as what is used on the real test. The delivery of the voice actors is somewhat monotone and lacks the natural quality of the actors on the real test, but that’s a minor complaint. The questions themselves are not as accurate as the ones in the Official iBT Tests Collection, but they are pretty close. I might actually recommend this chapter to someone who needs a bit of extra practice and has already worked through everything in better books.

Speaking

Mostly bad here. The sample independent speaking questions on page 168 are all terrible. Instead of using proper agree/disagree or preference choices it just lists 15 yes/no questions. Kaplan should know by now that “Do government workers need privacy?” is not how a TOEFL speaking question is phrased.

The book does have a decent type 2 speaking question on page 174 about parking on campus (a very common topic!) but quickly jumps into a terrible question on page 180 where the reading is a job posting rather than an announcement of some change on campus.

It then includes a completely wrong type 3 question which illustrates a concept using three examples, rather than 1 or 2 like on the real test (page 182/183).

The chapter finishes with a massive type 4 question, which includes a lecture probably twice as long as what would be used on the real test.

Writing

The integrated writing here is all bad as well. The authors of the book just don’t understand how the reading and lecture are structured on the real test. On test day, students get a four paragraph reading that has an introduction followed by three body paragraphs, each of which includes a unique and specific point. That is followed by a lecture which begins with an introduction and challenges each of those three points in turn (and in the same order). I call this a “mirror” structure. If you look at the samples on pages 233 and 255 they are nothing like this. The sample on page 253 almost figures this out, but the listening fails to rebut the reading’s points in the right order.

The section on independent writing is equally weak. It includes a bunch of opened-ended questions (268, 287, 288) that aren’t used on the real test. It fails to include any multiple choice questions, which are used very often these days.

The Online Resources

The above problems are also present in the online tests. In the reading section students again have to hunt around the whole article to answer many of the questions, instead of being told to focus on a single paragraph as on the real TOEFL. The articles again include freakishly long paragraphs that don’t match the real test. Not only is this inaccurate, but it really messes up any chance students have of learning proper time management in this section.

The listening content is okay, while the speaking and writing content is marred by the same sort of problems I identified above. The questions all have a superficial resemblance to the real test, but never quite achieve an acceptable level of accuracy. Notably, speaking Q3 in the first test asked me to “explain the major differences” between what was in the reading and the lecture. There’s just no excuse for that.

Just as frustrating is the clunkiness of the online test software. Users are unable to quickly skip ahead to desired sections. If you wish to study only writing? Too bad, you are going to have to sit through the reading, listening and speaking sections. This represents a step back from when Kaplan offered the same tests on CD.

Speaking of taking a step back, it must be mentioned that the practice tests don’t record student answers, so they cannot listen to what they said for review purposes. This functionality was provided 11 years ago when the same tests were provided on CD.

I noticed also that Kaplan failed to record new instructions for the shortened speaking section, so the questions are now misnumbered. The same is true in the lectures provided online. That’s just laziness. In addition, the timers in the practice test are all wrong, and don’t reset between questions in the speaking and writing sections. So, for example, if you only use 10 minutes to answer the first writing question you’ll have 40 minutes to answer the second writing question. This needs to be fixed.

Finally, the cover of the book promises “4 Practice Tests” (and an insert clarifies that they are all provided online) but there are only three tests provided. Last year’s edition had the same problem. I find that kind of sleazy.

Overall

Don’t get this book. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. Kaplan needs to get serious about updating their material. They haven’t done a proper update since 2008. There are so many good resources they can use to study the design of the TOEFL that were not available when this material was first created. They need to take advantage of them.

Originally published on TOEFL Resources.