Notefull TOEFL Mastery- Review

Notefull TOEFL Mastery- Review This is a negative review of Notefulls 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. Theyve been at it since 2008. Thats 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 Notefulls 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 Much of the information it contains is incorrect and outdated.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 availab le ten years ago. It feels like it hasnt 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.Im going to focus mostly on Notefulls 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 lets get started.Problems Regarding Independent WritingNotefull says that the independent writing questions take three forms. These are described as closed example, open example and compare and contrast.This is incorrect information. The real test uses, broadly speaking, the following three categories: agree/disagree, preference, multiple choice. You can read about these right here.The first of these two categories do fit Notefulls definition of closed example, but students will never see anything like an open example or a compare and contrast question on the real test. Notefulls problem is f urther compounded by the fact that none of the three sample questions they use to illustrate the types use the style that appears on the real test.The good news is that most of the practice tests in Notefulls course do use agree/disagree questions, which are perfectly accurate. They also contain a few preference questions, which are mostly accurate. They only contain a couple of totally incorrect open example questions, and no compare and contrast questions.The bad news is that there isnt a single multiple-choice question anywhere in Notefulls mastery program. This is a major problem, since these questions are very common on the test. Notefull really needs to include some of these in their course.The Source of Notefulls ErrorsIt appears that Notefull based this entire section of their mastery course on a close reading of a list of 180 sample questions that used to appear in the Official Guide to the TOEFL. In the course they refer to this list as the golden 180 and repeatedly encour age students to study it. But heres the thing: this list of questions is inaccurate and outdated. This list is where Notefull got their ideas about the compare and contrast questions, and about the open example questions. Yes, they appear on the list but they are not used on the real test. The list first appeared in the very first edition of the Official Guide, which means it was created even before the test was given 180 times! It is likely that these question styles were only used on the old Computer Based TOEFL.Moreover, Notefulls fails to include a single multiple choice (3 or 4 choice) practice question likely because the list of 180 questions contains only one of them.As I said above, Notefulls course looks like it was created back in 2008. But back in 2017 when the 5th edition of the Official Guide was published, ETS finally fixed that list of questions! They removed 160 of the questions, and inserted 20 new ones. The current list of 40 questions is now much more accurate. I t includes several multiple-choice questions, and even has the new long style questions that Notefull doesnt discuss in their course (I will write about that in a moment). Had Notefull revised their course based on this change from two years ago, their material would be much better.Problems Regarding the Integrated Writing SectionThe integrated writing section of Notefulls course is much better. But it still has problems.I commend Notefull for creating twelve very good integrated writing questions. Seriously all twelve of their integrated writing practice questions are fairly accurate. That is way better than most textbooks and websites.The problem is that they cover only one of the three possible integrated question styles. Notefulls questions are all what teachers generally refer to as casting doubt questions. On the real test, though, students are just as likely to face problem and solution questions and solution and problem questions. Moreover, the wording of the actual question prompt now takes a variety of forms, but the mastery course just uses the exact same wording every time Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they cast doubt on the points made in the reading passage.The difference in question design is slight, but it is real and needs to be reflected in a modern TOEFL course. Students panic when they think they are getting a totally different style of question, even if the functional differences are only minor. This section of the course could be fixed with only minor alterations to the questions and prompts. These alternations should have been made years ago.Indeed, these changes were first detailed in the 4th edition of the Official Guide published back in 2012. Again, Notefulls course should have been updated to reflect this. They need to reflect all of the possible question styles, and they need to upgrade their prompts.Paying for Stuff Borrowed from ETSAll of the practice tests in the Notefull course just use in dependent questions taken from the aforementioned list. Not only is it probably a bad idea to charge for stuff found in an ETS publication, but after 13 years EVERYONE has seen those questions again and again and again. They sure arent worth paying for.Notefull is Not Cutting EdgeNot only is the course failing to keep up with the Official Guides, it fails to reflect recent trends observed by teachers. The multiple choice and preference questions are getting really long nowadays. None of the questions in the course reflect that. Likewise, they dont reflect that the prompts have now been changed to include a warning about using memorized examples. Again, that is a minor difference but students do panic when they see it, and it should be included.The Lessons are FineIve concentrated mostly on accuracy so far. But how about the lessons themselves? They are okay. They are mostly given in text form, rather than video. Students can find the better descriptions of the tasks and better templ ates for free on YouTube, of course. These lessons describe the questions and will walk you through the basic structure of putting together an essay. Nothing groundbreaking, but all perfectly accurate.There are also a few basic lessons about note-taking and punctuation. Again, you can find stuff that is just as good via Google, but I cant question the correctness of the lessons. Note that when videos are provided, are incredibly low-resolution and they sound like they were filmed in a wind-tunnel. Again those should have been updated sometime in the last decade.The Other Sections?The listening section seems to have some good strategies. But it includes only six passages (three conversations, three lectures) worth of practice. Thats not enough for a course.The reading section also has some fine strategies. But it seems to have only two full practice articles (plus one that is repeated a few times). Thats not even a full tests worth.The speaking section seems okay. The lessons themsel ves are nothing special and better ones can be found on YouTube, but the 12 practice tests seem mostly accurate. Ill probably listen to them more carefully and write a few specific comments in the future.