The Princeton Review is the first major publisher with a TOEFL book that matches the new format. I ordered a copy for myself but, sadly, the new edition isn’t great. It looks like the editors rushed the book to market and left the job of updating it half finished.
Practice questions for the new “Writing for Academic Discussion” question are present in the new edition. It’s clear that the editors created them by sort of “upgrading” the old independent writing questions with the required discussion stuff. That’s fine. But, strangely, the sample responses have not been updated to match the new task format. They are all independent essays… some more than 300 words.
Similarly, the “core concept” and “cracking the writing section” chapters still teach readers how to write four-paragraph independent essays. They’ve even got a big ol’ independent essay template… but none of that is relevant any more.
The upside? Well, the book still has some good skill building stuff that is relevant to the rest of the test. There are now two practice tests instead of one, but that necessitated the creation of a new integrated writing task which isn’t very good. At first listen, I thought that PR had included the wrong audio track, but eventually I figured out that the question was just poorly constructed.
Anyway. I don’t recommend this one. Princeton Review issues a new edition every year so I’ll check in again in 2025.
If you desire to have a copy of the book, it is available via Amazon.
