Which is the best book to learn English?
Steve Keating
Like many of our students, you may be wondering which book you should use to improve your English. Of course, this depends on your goals.
If you are preparing for a Cambridge exam, try the Cambridge University Press range of books. For example, for the Advanced exam here is the ISBN code for Cambridge’s book: 978-1107670907. This book comes with answers to the exercises, and audio in the form of CDs. This publisher has similar books at all levels of the Cambridge exams. As an alternative, try Oxford University Press’s book for this exam – ISBN 978-0-19-451249-7. This publisher also has preparation books for all levels of the Cambridge exams.
For general English learning, try the Headway range. For example, the 5th edition of this series at intermediate level has this ISBN number: 978-0194529150. Online practice is included with this book. There are six levels, ranging from beginner to advanced.
For business English, we suggest the Market Leader range. The third edition of the elementary level of this range has the ISBN number 978-1408237052. There are 5 levels in this range.
For the Ielts exam we recommend the Official Guide: 978-1107620698. This book prepares you for both versions of the test – the Academic Ielts and the General Ielts. Audio for the listening exercises may be downloaded through the accompanying app.
For the Toefl exam, our recommendation is again the Official guide – ISBN number: 978-1265477318. This is the 7th edition. It’s important to get this edition as it reflects the July 2023 changes to the test. It includes access to four full-length digital practice tests. As the Toefl is a digital exam, these tests accurately reflect test-day experience.
Why not find out from one of our experienced English teachers at a no-obligation trial lesson which is the best book for you?
The following topics could also be of interest to you:
Cambridge have announced that the Linguaskill Business exam is the replacement for the Cambridge BEC exams. The new exam will be launched in January 2024.
You may wonder how one exam can replace a set of three exams, which were offered at B1, B2 and C1 levels. The answer is that Linguaskill is computer adaptive. The computer rapidly obtains an approximate measure of your English ability and designs the rest of the test you will take to reflect your ability.