TOEFL-Best books, material, advice

[Teethandtrees]

Hi every1. So, I'm planning to take the TOEFL, internet based soon god willing and would appreciate if anyone could answer the following questions. I’ve looked on other threads but everything’s sort of scattered around. Anyways:
1) What’s the best book/ materials (please only the most essential for scoring well), I’ve heard abt the ‘official’ book but I dnt see many ppl giving it great reviews.
2) What was your experience with the exam, please include specifics on HOW each section is conducted
3) Anything which needs extra attention
4) Oh, and reassurance!!!

Thanks

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[zaichik]

Hi every1. So, I'm planning to take the TOEFL, internet based soon god willing and would appreciate if anyone could answer the following questions. I’ve looked on other threads but everything’s sort of scattered around. Anyways:
1) What’s the best book/ materials (please only the most essential for scoring well), I’ve heard abt the ‘official’ book but I dnt see many ppl giving it great reviews.
2) What was your experience with the exam, please include specifics on HOW each section is conducted
3) Anything which needs extra attention
4) Oh, and reassurance!!!

Thanks

Hi buddy,
It is quite hard to say which book is the best or the better one for the TOEFL. Every person has his/her own abillity in language. Basically, TOEFL is not just about your knowlege of English, but also your knowlage about how to take that exam. Anybook with some actual exercises would work. Just pick up one of them and keep practicing.
BTW from my point of view, Barons book for toefl, Barrons writing and Barrons vocabulary were most helpful than others.
hope it helps.

 

[Youth]

Hi every1. So, I'm planning to take the TOEFL, internet based soon god willing and would appreciate if anyone could answer the following questions

I used Barron's TOEFL-IBT - 12th Edition textbook & Princeton for reference, Practice as many 'Mock tests' as possible. Barron's software CD, comes with a Textbook, includes a set of 7 mock tests & has the same difficulty level as of the actual test. Kaplan's software CD is another source to practice mock tests, comes with a Kaplan-TOEFL IBT textbook & has more difficulty level than that of the actual test.

Use "ETS ONLINE-TOEFL IBT-FREE TEST SAMPLER" (one that comes along with your 'TOEFL IBT exam ticket' and is available on your TOEFL-IBT online account). Especially, don't miss its speaking & writing sections, go through examples of "good answer responses" and try to give answers in a similar manner on mock tests & later on actual exam, cuz it will help you get higher scores in speaking & writing sections. hope that helps !

 

[trintrin]

Hi,

I used barrons and it has excellent mock tests very similar to the real test.... it helped me a lot... scored 106....
Hope it helps!

 

[Teethandtrees]

Thank u all for the kind replies
So it seems Barron is a favorite. My English's is 'k so could I get away with just Barron's iBT +cd or should I get Barron's practice exercises as well, since everybody agrees that practice is the most important thing?
Luck to everyone on whatever they're pursuing!

 

[zaichik]

Thank u all for the kind replies
So it seems Barron is a favorite. My English's is 'k so could I get away with just Barron's iBT +cd or should I get Barron's practice exercises as well, since everybody agrees that practice is the most important thing?
Luck to everyone on whatever they're pursuing!

Barron's iBT + cd has enough exercises for your practice. if your english is good, 1 month studing is sufficient.
good luck.

 

[Dchin21]

For practice, also try "Sharpening Skills for the Toefl IBT" by Compass. It's important to get practice with materials that are close to the exam and I found with some books the reading, listening, and integrated writing materials weren't very close to the actual test. Like practicing the format is really important too.
http://www.amazon.com/Sharpening-Sk...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1305729618&sr=1-1

I would also suggest the official ETS book for practice the publisher is McGraw Hill, but exams are from ETS.

I also used a book I purchased off amazon based on reviews and the book is pretty good. "Sample Essays and Study Guide for Toefl IBT independent writing" by Exam Masters. It's only for the independent essay section of the test, but it has a lot of samples and goes over exactly what an independent essay should be like.
http://www.amazon.com/Sample-Essays...=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1305729640&sr=1-6

Hope this helps!