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The TOEFL iBT Prep 2021 is the latest TOEFL preparation book from The Princeton Review. A reputable test prep company.
In our expert review of the best TOEFL preparation books, we chose the TOEFL iBT Prep 2021 as our top runner-up.
Although the book did not make our best list for TOEFL iBT prep books, we found the speaking and writing templates very helpful.
In this blog post, we'll dive deeper into the content of this book, highlighting what we like and what we don't like. After reading this post, you will be confident in deciding if the TOEFL iBT Prep 2021 from The Princeton Review is the right choice for you. Let's begin
Features of TOEFL iBT Prep 2021 by The Princeton Review
A new purchase of the book comes with a free 2-year access to The Princeton Review's online companion tools. You can register your book here on the Princeton Review website using the ISBN found at the back of the book.
Your access to this Princeton Review online account gives you 29 audio tracks, a study guide, and reading drills with answer explanations.
Screenshot of the online companion tool from the TOEFL iBT Prep 2021 (Image Credit: Sojourning Scholar)
Unlike other publishers like Barron's, ETS, and Kaplan, The Princeton Review only provides 1 full-length practice test in this book. Unfortunately, this full-length practice test is not available in the online.
Furthermore, we found that the additional TOEFL resources provided in the online tool did not add any much value to what was already provided in the book.
Review of TOEFL iBT Content
The chapters in this book are broken into 4 parts. Part 1 provides an overview of the TOEFL iBT, a brief discussion of how to create a study plan for the TOEFL exam, and a high level overview of the TOEFL strategies you'll find in later chapters.
Part 2 and 3 focus on the 4 TOEFL iBT sections. While Part 4 contains the single full-length practice test.
Now let's discuss the chapters of the book that teach strategies for all 4 sections of the TOEFL iBT.
Reading Section
We really liked the concept of active reading discussed in this section. Active reading is defined as reading with purpose. Which is much different from academic reading that's typical of a higher education curriculum.
This strategy of active reading will help you attempt all 30+ questions on the reading section in the limited amount of time.
This section introduces you to the basic principles you need to crack the reading section. These principles include actively reading, attacking the question based on question type, finding the answer, using the 2 pass system (where you quickly answer the questions you’re most certain about), and using the process of elimination.
We like how this section of the book teaches you how to use the process of elimination (POE) very effectively. The book does this very well by showing you how the process of elimination can be used for each type of question on the reading section.
You will find 8 reading practice drills with answers and explanations for all possible choices. This detailed explanation of each answer choice will provide you with a clear understanding of the correct answer choice.
Listening Section
Similar to the chapters on the reading section, the chapters on the listening section discuss the concept of active listening. Described as listening for purpose and reasons/examples.
However, readers are reminded that the listening section is more difficult than the reading section, because you have only one chance to listen to a conversation or lecture in full. So active listening needs to be done judiciously.
Next, basic principles for cracking the listening section are discussed. These include active listening, attacking the question, and using POE aggressively, due to the limited opportunity to listen to a lecture or a conversation.
The book also touches on how to take good notes during the listening section by introducing what it called the 5 Rs of note-taking.
However, no strategies are given for how to take notes using shorthand/abbreviations.
You will find 5 listening practice drills with thorough answer explanations as well as transcripts to the audio.
Overall, we found better note-taking skills for the listening section in Barron’s TOEFL iBT with 8 Online Practice Tests, 17th Edition.
Speaking Section
The section on speaking strategies emphasizes the core skills needed for success on the TOEFL iBT, followed by 4 quick speaking drills for practice.
Some tips for cracking the speaking section include: learning the appropriate template for each task, using the appropriate vocabulary for each task, and listening and practicing English as often as possible.
What we liked the most about the speaking strategies in this book is that there are sample templates for the independent and integrated speaking sections.
These templates do a great job of providing a structured framework for you to build your spoken responses upon.
At the end of the speaking section, 4 speaking drills for each of the 4 speaking tasks are provided as well as sample responses for each.
Writing Section
Here, the cores skills of the TOEFL writing section are described. These include expressing your purpose, organizing your ideas, writing a perfect body paragraph, and concluding your response.
Sample responses are provided for each of these sub-skills as well as 3 writing drills for practice.
A very brief review of grammatical structures such as parts of speech, tenses, agreement, parallelism, spelling, and punctuation is provided.
Similar to the speaking section, sample templates for the independent and integrated writing tasks are provided to give readers a structured plan for building their written responses.
Quality of Practice Tests in TOEFL iBT Prep 2021 by The Princeton Review
With a single full-length practice test in this book, which is not available online, there isn't much to work with. This is a major flaw of this book. Given the importance of taking a simulated practice test, we would not recommend this book for its practice test.
For the best TOEFL iBT practice test experience, go for The Official Guide to the TOEFL iBT, 6th Edition or the TOEFL iBT or Kaplan TOEFL iBT Plus 2020-2021.
Should You Buy TOEFL iBT Prep 2021 by Princeton Review?
Overall, the test taking strategies provided for all section of the TOEFL iBT in this book are just okay. Given that there are better books for TOEFL strategies, we can only recommend this book for its speaking and writing templates.
So if your speaking and writing skills are not up to par, you should consider purchasing and reviewing the speaking and writing section guides in this book.
