I bought this item mainly because it said there was a full length test in the cd, and that the software was exactly the same as in the test. Well, after studying by the book and taking the test, my thoughts are that the ONE AND ONLY full lenght test is not enough to justify the value of the book. Also, the software is very similar to the test one, but it is NOT EXACTLY the same. Maybe the 3rd edition of this book corrected this...



I was lucky that a friend of mine who was also taking the test bought the Longman book. The Longman has a LOT of questions, divided by skills, full-tests, etc, and all questions are different. In this "Official Guide", there are ONLY the questions of the full-lenght test, and nothing else. The test is indeed complete, and has lots of explanations about what kind of answers do they look for and how do they rate the responses (in the speaking and writing parts), along with various sample answers, which are the main value of the book. The Longman just gave one sample answer for each writing question, and no sample audio to the speaking section.



But if I had to choose only one book to study for the TOEFL, I would choose the Longman because of the higher number of questions.



I cannot comment on the contents of the book itself because I barely opened it (went directly to the CD), but I can say that the questions on the book ARE THE SAME THAT THE ONES ON THE FULL TEST ON THE CD.