JFE

laxxy Wrote:The the TOC includes answers to exercises, are these reasonably complete?

Answers are quite complete. The only time they omit answers is for exercises that say something like "describe what you see in the picture in your own words". There aren't many exercises like this, as it seems the book is designed for self study.

laxxy Wrote:How useful are the exercises themselves, do they include E->J translation

The explanations have lots of J->E sample sentences. The exercises are very useful, but don't have E->J translation. Typically, they give instructions in English, and one example, then set you loose. As an example, there's a picture of a park with a lot of seperate activities going on, each one numbered. The example sentence is "hana wo occhaa dame da yo", which refers to a woman scolding a girl picking a flower. Beside number 1 in the picture, there's a cop scolding a kid walking on the grass. The answer is "shibafu no naka ni haicha ikenaiyo". Of course, there are many possible variations, but the book only gives one.
(over half of the exercises are based on pictures)

laxxy Wrote:are they mostly pattern drills for the last lesson's new expressions?

There are pattern drills, but a pretty low percentage compared to other texts.