This is a negative review of Notefull’s TOEFL Mastery course. Indeed, it is a very negative review. With that said, I do want to mention that I admire Notefull for being trailblazers in the world of online TOEFL teaching. They’ve been at it since 2008. That’s just a couple of years after the creation of the iBT! Moreover, a big part of their legacy is that former Notefull teachers have gone on to create really amazing businesses in the test preparation industry. Kathy Spratt, for instance, founded House of TOEFL and quickly became one of the most in-demand tutors online. Likewise, Josh Macpherson created TST Prep, which is hands-down the best modern platform for guided TOEFL study.
The problem I see with Notefull’s course, though, is that it looks like it was created back in 2008, and has barely been updated since then. Much of the information it contains is incorrect and outdated. A lot of it seems to be based on a careful reading of the version of the Official Guide to the TOEFL available ten years ago. It feels like it hasn’t been updated to reflect current versions of that guide… let alone the vast amount of research that has been conducted by other teachers and experts.
I’m going to focus mostly on Notefull’s three step writing plan since writing is my area of expertise, but I do want to point out that similar problems are found in the rest of the “TOEFL Mastery” ebook/course.
Now let’s get started.