Alright, so here is a quick summary of all the changes in the new editions of “Official TOEFL iBT Tests Volume 1 (fourth edition)” and “Official TOEFL iBT Tests Volume 2 (third edition).
General Changes
- Of course, the tests have been revised to match the new format. The reading, speaking and listening sections have been shortened.
- I believe that all of the pronoun reference questions have been removed from the reading tests in both books. This matches recent observations that the pronoun reference questions are quite rare nowadays (but this is not a guarantee that you won’t get one).
- The reading tests have mostly been shortened by eliminating vocabulary questions, but of course a few questions of other types have also been removed. Again, this matches recent observations that vocabulary questions are way less frequent than before.
- Thankfully, all of the non-standard reading questions have been removed. This includes the weird ones with the following phrasing: “which of the following best describes the author’s presentation of information in the passage,” “the passage is developed primarily by…” and “which of the terms is defined in the passage.” I’m really happy about this change.
- All of the table questions have been shortened (items have been removed) and they are now worth only two points (instead of 3 or 4 points).
Changes in Volume 1
- The first reading passage in test four is now “Galileo and his Telescope” (which is not a TPO). It used to be “Population and Climate.” I think this is because the old passage was dominated by a massive non-standard question that referred to four different paragraphs.
Changes in Volume 2
- The third reading passages from test two and test three have been switched (with each other). I don’t know why.
