My latest TOEFL iBT text book - Scoring Strategies for the TOEFL iBT, A Complete Guide - is about a week away from going to the publisher, Nova Press. Scoring Strategies is 799 pages long with 82 great audio tracks. Scoring Strategies has been road-tested in real TOEFL classrooms at the American university level for ten years, and has been edited by an international staff of TOEFL Pro editors.
What makes Scoring Strategies different? Lots. First off, it focuses on what you, the test-taker, need to get the TOEFL score you want. What do you want? Real-world, test-proven TOEFL iBT strategies. Scoring Strategies delivers. Every word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, period, essay, lecture, conversation and comma is connected to a scoring strategy. In short - no fluff. Just serious, real-world TOEFL iBT strategies that will make you a TOEFL Pro!
Here's another reason why Scoring Strategies is different. As a TOEFL Pro, I have analyzed all competing TOEFL texts (Longman, Cambridge, Princeton, Heinle, North Star). One thing I noticed is that there are very few idioms in these texts. It's true! Serious. Open Longman, and see how many idioms you can find. Good luck. Why so few idioms? No idea. Not in Scoring Strategies though. It is wall-to-wall idioms. Why so many? Because that is how native English speakers communicate - idiomatically, both formally (academically) and informally (non academic). ETS, the people who design the TOEFL iBT, say: "The iBT uses authentic language!" Translated, that means real English. You want "authentic language''? You want real English? Scoring Strategies delivers.
And it doesn't stop there. Oh, no. Scoring Strategies uses my original, graphics-pedagogy to make learning TOEFL iBT strategies fast and easy. That pedagogy I call argument mapping. Argument mapping has made my first TOEFL iBT text, Speaking and Writing Strategies for the TOEFL iBT, an international bestseller, both in print (in English and in Chinese) and in Kindle. Scoring Strategies continues and expands argument mapping across all four iBT test sections making Scoring Strategies the first conceptually integrated TOEFL iBT textbook from start to finish. Pretty cool, huh?
Stayed tuned. More to come.
Bruce Stirling - 5.9.11
The Pro at work!
