Official Guide to the Toefl Test (Official Guide to the Toefl Ibt)

I've been teaching TOEFL for more than 15 years and this is the book I recommend to my students. It's limited in the amount of practice, however it is the most authentic material that test takers can find. An added bonus in the fourth edition is the fact that the CD ROM is both Mac and Windows compatible for the first time.

UPDATE: I've purchased three of these books from Amazon and another three elsewhere and the CD ROM's (six in total) all quit unexpectedly after the first two speaking tasks, making it impossible to view the last three speaking questions in all of the practice tests. It's almost certainly a bug in the software. I've downgraded my rating from five stars to three.

In general, I think the ETS Guide is the best book to use for TOEFL preparation. In fact, I lobbied my college department for years in order to get them to switch to this book for our TOEFL prep program. They finally did, just in time for the 4th edition, and now I am totally pissed off about the CD change that came without warning! In the past editions, teachers could use the CD with their classes, because the CD allowed you to either install the test program or to just listen to the audio tracks. Since teachers are not allowed to install programs onto classroom computers, we now cannot use the part of the CD that requires installation. The 4th edition CD does not allow you to listen to the audio tracks without installing the software. So now all the students have books and the teachers have books, and we cannot play any of the audio tracks in class! There was no indication of that change at all before we got the book. I can't understand why ETS would make that change, surely knowing that many schools order the book for classes and that teachers would not be able easily access the audio tracks in class. Therefore, I give the book 4 stars instead of the 5 it would have otherwise.

It's definitely NOT enough for the TOEFL preparation. It gave me the idea that ETS wrote this book just to sell the sample tests. They represent more than 60% of the book. Additionally, it only describes the type of questions and gives superficial tips. If one really wants a step by step how-to-do book he should try Cambridge Preparation or other similar book.

I am currently using this book to study for the TOEFL Exam and it is amazing. It has great techniques to save time & score higher as well as alot of previous authentic exam questions. The CD actually works fine and all exams are there but it needs to be installed. Although many people said not all of the exams worked for them, they worked just fine for me. Highly recommended book if you want to score higher than 90 on the TOEFL. Will update with my score as soon as i get it.

Finally got my TOEFL Scores & Highly recommend this. I got a total of 109 from 120 with the least of reading at 24/30. Highly advised to study from this book but if you want a score of 26 or higher in reading you need to have a high knowledge of alot of vocabulary as many of the toefl exams include hard vocabulary.

Pro: CDs got Reading, Listening, Speaking, Writing and they're compatible with Mac/ PC. If you find CDs as a crucial way to practice, then buy this ETS product. In my experience, other brand's CDs usually have audio only, which is a huge disappointment. For Mac users, Kaplan's TOEFL CD (2009 edition) will NEVER work since the CD was only compatible with old Macs with previous processor PowerPC before Apple decided to choose Intel processor (PC users are generally OK) .

Cons: Reused samples of lectures/ student conversation etc in the book (I see same exact stuff for over 3 yrs and ETS gotta update the book)

A must have for TOEFL prep, the only down size is that they don't offer the CD material online and my laptop did not have a CD-drive (most newer laptops don't have it either), so I had to buy an external CD-drive.

It is a good introduction to the TOEFL test. It doesn't talk much about strategies on how to counter each types of questions though. However, it provides some practice questions on reading and listening + there are 3 full length practice tests which are pretty good. Using this book PLUS watching youtube videos is sufficient for TOEFL preparation in less than 2 weeks time for someone who speaks English often.

Update: I got 112/120. I got a 30/30 for reading, 29/30 for listening thanks to the practice questions from this book.

I give it a four star because of the CD ROM tests and its explanations of all answers and how they are rated by ETS. Very simple basic book which is easy follow to get the minimum score (around 85-90), highly recommend this book compared to other books available in the market. I scored 102 in TOEFL. By the way, I used multiple sources for the test preparations. I think Internet has more updated material.

As pointed out by many other reviewers, the software included in the guide has a bug (I am using the latest Mac OS). Basically, you will not be able to exercise the speaking part of the test (the most challenging one for most of the people). I have emailed the assistance at least four times but I have been given no answers. Terrible customer service and defective product, as simple as that.

your best friend to get the score you want on the TOEFL. I prepared by myself and got the grades I needed.