Building Skills for the Toefl Test

Rating:
Summary: quality of this book
Review: I have used this book. I think it is a good book to practice cuz it has a lot of exercises to practice(Sturcture and Reading)., but when I practice with listening comprehension section, I found out that it is more and more diffecult than the real test. I know the practice exercise should be difficult than, so it will be easy on the real test. In my view, The audio used with this book make me upset because it is 50-50North American and British accent and it is difficult to catch the words authough I tried to listen many times.In reality, the voice from the real test will clear. All in all, I think it is useless to practice listening with the unclear sound in this book. it also will make the practicer more confused. So, Let try the Longman set by Doborah Phillips. It is a very good set and make my score raise up to 100 point.

Rating:
Summary: I don't really want to rate this book !!!
Review: I think the book is good but you have to find the audio cassette tape and the key too. The tactic is very helpful either the content. I find it has a lot of practice but then again like I said before. I couldn't help but notice that you should have talk to company or publiher about this flaw otherwise it was not fair for everybody who purchased the book . If everyone who purchase this book have a problem I encourage you to talk to the publisher or company they have the e-mail and whoever want to buy this book it is a find book and after that I think you should contact this e-mail especially in California. []

Rating:
Summary: A Valuable Book for ESL TOEFL Teachers
Review: I've always enjoyed teaching from King's book. The book begins with eight test-taking tactics. The rest of the book is organized by learning objectives for each of the three main TOEFL sections, listening, grammar/structure, and reading, as well as a section on the TWE. The book ends with two complete TOEFL practice tests.

I've found the exercises for each learning objective to be very innovative and different from most other TOEFL texts. For example listening objective #8 helps students avoid sight-sound confusions and provides numerous exercises where students must focus on the meaning of a sentence containing four closely related sight-sound words such as "shows," "chose," choose," and "shoes." In reading objective 1, which helps students focus on the main idea, students work through related sets of sentences to determine which one is the most general in meaning. Each set increases in length helping the student to extract generality, broader/lesser scope, and main and subordinate ideas, out of increasingly complex meaning. I will say that even with the most advanced ESL students some of the exercises in the reading section are extremely difficult.

If you're looking for a TOEFL text for your students that is different from the rest, this is it.

Rating:
Summary: A Valuable Book for ESL TOEFL Teachers
Review: I've always enjoyed teaching from King's book. The book begins with eight test-taking tactics. The rest of the book is organized by learning objectives for each of the three main TOEFL sections, listening, grammar/structure, and reading, as well as a section on the TWE. The book ends with two complete TOEFL practice tests.

I've found the exercises for each learning objective to be very innovative and different from most other TOEFL texts. For example listening objective #8 helps students avoid sight-sound confusions and provides numerous exercises where students must focus on the meaning of a sentence containing four closely related sight-sound words such as "shows," "chose," choose," and "shoes." In reading objective 1, which helps students focus on the main idea, students work through related sets of sentences to determine which one is the most general in meaning. Each set increases in length helping the student to extract generality, broader/lesser scope, and main and subordinate ideas, out of increasingly complex meaning. I will say that even with the most advanced ESL students some of the exercises in the reading section are extremely difficult.

If you're looking for a TOEFL text for your students that is different from the rest, this is it.

Rating:
Summary: I don't really want to rate this book !!!
Review: This book contains a great structure section which every test taker should get the full score. There are many rules in English grammar that I never realize. It helps me to improve my English grammar for the TOEFL test. In the Reading section of this book, on the other hand, it is too difficult. It is sometimes useless if the reader cannot get through it.

I hope my review can help you guys make a decision.

Rating:
Summary: THE WORST YOU COULD BUY
Review: Well I gave one star for the only reason I couldnt give less...

First I had no tapes (don't know if the librarian fooled me..) but without any tape you can forget the listening comprehension you don't even have the questions in the book!! (122 pages of the book completely useless)

But this is not the worst part: the real problem is not in the missing questons but in the missing answers!! There is absolutely no answer for any of the question of this book not even for the "complete" pratice test; and I am not speaking of detailled answers just the basic "the good answer is choice A" so there is no way you can know that your answers were correct or not and consequently no clue on what part you need to improve.

Adding that the "lectures" are short and unclear and their "step by step" preparation impossible to follow (you are asked to identify problems in the begin of the book that you will only learn about at the end...) there is absolutely nothing positive about this book (not even the price)

For the ones that are still thinking of buying: it was so useless that it made me write my first review...