Introduced the improvement of determining volatile phenols in water by 4-APP extractive distillation method. 250 mL distillate was changed to 100 mL to avoid a long time distillation in the original method and can be applied in the analysis of large quantities of surface water samples. According to the comparison of the results of two methods, it showed that little changes were in absorbance, and their standard curves were similar. The recovery of both methods were in line with regulatory requirements. There was no significant difference by t test between the two methods. The distillation time was reduced from 45 min to 25 min. It improved the efficiency greatly.