Magoosh TOEFL Prep Course Review (2024) 

Magoosh is well-known for its value-driven approach to test prep. And they have successfully carved a niche for themselves catering to students and families looking for effective test prep courses on a budget.

But is a budget test prep course like Magoosh TOEFL prep the perfect fit for you?

To help you determine if Magoosh TOEFL prep can get you the TOEFL score you desire, we've purchased and spent several weeks deeply reviewing their TOEFL course.

After reading this in-depth review article, you will be confident in deciding if Magoosh is the best TOEFL course for you. 

Is the Magoosh TOEFL Prep Course Right for You? 

Who we recommend the course for:

• Self-motivated students who prefer to study independently
• Students/families looking for a budget TOEFL prep course

Who we don't recommend the course for:

• People who need personalized or 1-on-1 tutoring
• Someone who strongly desires a TOEFL course with graded speaking assessments

Magoosh TOEFL Video Review

To get a peek into what studying with the Magoosh TOEFL prep course feels like, check out our unbiased video review below. In this video, we break down the performance of this TOEFL course in several key areas that are important to your success on the TOEFL.

Magoosh TOEFL Overview

Like most of their other test prep courses, Magoosh offers its line-up of TOEFL prep courses entirely online. Its TOEFL prep course line-up include two self-paced options: 

The 1 Month Premium and the 6 Month Premium, both of which could be accessed for 30 days and 180 days respectively. 

Magoosh does not offer any live classes or 1-on-1 tutoring for TOEFL prep. However, these self-paced courses give you on-demand access to a TOEFL expert who can help answer any questions you might have.

Magoosh TOEFL prep course similarities

Let's examine what both TOEFL courses have in common.

• Lessons and Resources: Both of these courses offer the same TOEFL lessons in video format and additional learning resources. These TOEFL lessons teach skills and strategies that can help you improve your scores on all 4 sections of the TOEFL iBT exam. 
• Practice tests: Buyers of any of Magoosh's self-paced courses get up to 6 simulated full-length practice tests. This gives you a lot more practice test opportunities than what you can find in many TOEFL books.
• Ask-an-Expert feature: The ability to contact an on-demand expert is a great feature that any self-paced course can offer. Magoosh really separates themselves from their competition by offering unlimited email support from a TOEFL expert on both of their self-paced TOEFL courses.   
• Score increase: Both of Magoosh's TOEFL prep courses promise the same 4 point score improvement to certain eligible students.

Magoosh TOEFL prep course distinctions

Now that we've discussed some of the similarities of Magoosh's self-paced courses, let's dive into what makes these courses different.

• Access period: As the title of the courses suggest, with the 1 Month Premium option, access to the course is given for 30 days compared to 180 days with the 6 Month Premium option.
• Support: The 1 Month Premium includes a single graded writing assessment, while the 6 Month Premium includes 4 graded writing assessments. However, extra graded writing assessments can be purchased on the platform for an additional fee.
• Pricing: The 6 Month Premium course allows you to make monthly payments over a 4-month period, while the 1 Month Premium requires payment in full at the time of signing up. When comparing the two, the 6 Month Premium is more cost effective than the 1 Month Premium. 

Lesson Quality

One of the most important components of any test prep resource is the effectiveness of the lessons on test-taking strategies and skill building. Magoosh does not disappoint in this area.

The course contains a library of up to 100 bite-sized video lessons exclusively focused on the TOEFL iBT exam and over 50 video lessons dedicated to supplementary content on English grammar.

The video lessons are produced using presentation slides, along with an audio recording of the instructors. 

As the instructors explain the concepts in each lesson, they occasionally write notes and make highlights on these presentation slides. This makes for a more authentic and engaging learning experience.

While you can't see the instructors, you can still tell that they are very knowledgeable about the best strategies for tackling the TOEFL iBT exam.  

Each video lesson has a full-transcript of the audio, which could benefit English as a second language students who struggle with understanding native English accents.

We liked that these video lessons could be watched at up to 2x speeds. So, learners with a strong understanding of native English accents can benefit from watching the video at higher speeds if they choose. 

As you watch each video lesson, you can take down study notes, provide feedback to Magoosh for improvement, and mark video lessons you've completed as finished.

A few of the lessons we found to be very helpful were the strategies on identifying wrong answer traps on the reading and listening sections. As well as the lessons on inventing examples for the independent tasks on the speaking and writing sections. 

Having reviewed several TOEFL prep resources, we can confidently say that you will learn some really effective TOEFL test-taking strategies that are truly unique to this course. 

Overall, we were quite impressed by the quality of the TOEFL coursework that Magoosh has to offer here. 

User Experience

The Magoosh TOEFL platform presents a simple user interface for desktop and mobile users. 

After logging in to your account on a desktop, you will be taken to the Magoosh Dashboard shown in the image below. On this dashboard, you can find suggested lessons and practice drills for all 4 sections of the TOEFL iBT. 

Access to the entire library of video lessons, 6 full-length practice tests, and additional learning materials can be gained by using the top navigation. 

And in the event that you need clarification on a TOEFL question, you can simply use the Help feature at the top of the screen to send an email to Magoosh.

Mobile users of Magoosh TOEFL apps (TOEFL Prep and TOEFL Vocabulary Flashcards) will find the minimalist app design very satisfactory.

The one complaint we had about the user experience is that the responses from the Magoosh instructors are not contained within the online platform, instead they are sent to the email address on the account. This makes it inconvenient to review your past feedback as you will have to dig through your inbox to find each response. 

Review of Magoosh TOEFL Practice Material

Practice questions

As mentioned earlier, Magoosh provides over 400 practice questions across all 4 sections of the TOEFL. Reading and listening section questions make up the bulk of this question bank. While speaking and writing section questions make up a small percentage.

Unlike other TOEFL prep course providers, Magoosh does not present practice drills at the end of each lesson. So, if you want to practice a concept you've learned in a video lesson, you will have to tap into this question bank of over 400 questions.

These practice questions could be taken in a practice mode or a quiz mode. In both modes, you can choose how many tasks you want to attempt, as well as how much time you want to spend completing all tasks. 

In practice mode, answer explanations are displayed after completing each reading/listening question or each speaking/writing task, while in quiz mode they are reserved until after all questions or tasks in the practice set are completed.

It's also important to point out that questions on the full-length practice tests are drawn from the reserve of 400+ practice questions. As a result, you're likely to come across questions in your practice test that you've already attempted while studying.  

So, depending on how many practice drills you've attempted before taking a full-length practice test, you might end up with far less than the 6 unique full-length practice tests advertised by Magoosh.

Practice test experience

While many course providers offer simulated practice tests, these "simulated" practice test environments do not appear like what you'll see on the real TOEFL iBT exam. 

This is not the case with Magoosh, as their practice test environment is very similar to the real TOEFL iBT exam. 

When we deeply analyzed the difficulty of the practice questions on the Magoosh TOEFL course to those on a real TOEFL iBT, we found close similarities on all 4 sections of the TOEFL iBT exam. 

The passages and questions on the reading and listening sections had the same level of difficulty as those on the real TOEFL iBT. This should be very promising to potential buyers of this course. As the last thing you want on the day of your TOEFL iBT exam is to be surprised by questions that are more difficult than what you practiced with during your prep.

Furthermore, when we compared the tasks on the speaking and writing sections of this course to those on the real TOEFL iBT exam, we found a close match. As the independent and integrated tasks found on the speaking and writing sections were structured in an identical way to those found in official TOEFL iBT practice questions provided by ETS - the makers of the TOEFL exam. 

In addition, the practice test environment is also quite similar to the real TOEFL iBT test environment. For example, when taking a full-length practice test, you'll find a review button on the reading section that allows you to easily jump from one reading question to any one of the other 29 reading questions in the section. 

Other functionalities commonly found in the listening, speaking, and writing sections of a real TOEFL iBT exam are also present in Magoosh's full-length practice test environment.

The entire practice test is also properly designed to mimic the real TOEFL iBT exam, in the sense that once you begin a full-length practice test, you will be given a 10 minute break between the listening and the speaking sections, and you're expected to complete the entire practice test in one sitting that lasts for 3 hours and 15 minutes.

While on the subject of simulated practice tests, it's also worth mentioning that Magoosh does not provide any diagnostic practice test that allows students new to the TOEFL to discover their starting points. 

As a result, students of this course may find it difficult to measure and track their performance over time compared to those studying with the PrepScholar TOEFL prep course.

Quality of answer explanations 

Magoosh does an excellent job of providing thorough answer explanations to every question on the reading and listening section, as well as presenting detailed sample responses to each task on the speaking and writing sections.

On the reading and listening section, you will not only find explanations in text format for all answer choices, but you will also find video explanations from their tutors clearly breaking down why each answer choice is either correct or wrong.

The same thing applies to the speaking and writing tasks. Here, you will find video explanations where the instructors teach you how to craft your response, and also give you a good sample response to each independent and integrated task on the speaking and writing practice section. 

In addition, each answer explanation will have a reference to an appropriate TOEFL video lesson. Allowing you to get a more detailed understanding of the related concept. 

And in the event that you still disagree with the answer explanations, you can always use the Help feature at the top of the screen to have your concerns addressed by an expert.

Overall, the answer explanations in this course are absolutely superb, and stand far above those found in other TOEFL test prep providers. 

Support

Given that the speaking and writing sections of the TOEFL exam are graded subjectively, these sections tend to be the blind spots for many student preparing for the TOEFL iBT.

Therefore, the quality of support in these sections is of the utmost importance when choosing a TOEFL prep course. 

On the basis of support, Magoosh stands out from its competition by providing unlimited access to a TOEFL expert, as well as offering graded writing assessments. 

The Ask-An-Expert feature, allows you to ask an unlimited number of questions to a TOEFL expert through the platform. 

While the Graded Writing Assessment feature scores your written response to any one of the writing practice questions.

The average response when using the Ask-an-Expert and Graded Writing Assessment features is between 24 - 48 hours. Which is very impressive when compared to other competing TOEFL prep course providers.

To evaluate how well Magoosh delivers on support, we used the Ask-an-Expert and Graded Writing Assessment features on several occasions. To our surprise, we received feedback from a Magoosh TOEFL expert within 24 hours on all occasions.

Furthermore, the quality of feedback was quite helpful, considering how quickly it was sent. You can see a sample response received from Magoosh in the image below. 

Buyers of either one of Magoosh's Premium courses can always purchase extra graded writing assessments for an additional fee of $30 for 2 graded writing assessments. 

While Magoosh stands out from its competition with a high quality ask-an-expert feature, they fall short with the lack of a graded speaking assessment. This is the only complaint we had about Magoosh's student support.

Magoosh TOEFL Pricing

The 1 Month Premium TOEFL course starts at $109, while the 6 Month Premium course starts at $129. At $129, the 6 Month Premium TOEFL course comes out to a monthly cost of $21.50 per month of access.

So, if you were to purchase the 1 Month Premium course on 6 different occasions, you'll be spending an extra $525 compared to a single purchase at $129 for the 6 months of access.

In addition, Magoosh offers a 4 month payment plan for the 6 Month Premium course. Which comes out to an installment payment of $32.25 per month.

Furthermore, Magoosh occasionally runs a sale on their website with price discounts of up to 20% on both TOEFL prep courses. 

Compared to other TOEFL prep course providers, Magoosh's TOEFL courses are significantly cheaper. Yet they rival their competition in terms of the quality of test prep content. This is proof of their commitment to provide value to students and families on a budget. 

Other Features and Resources

Given the stiff competition for customers, it's no surprise to find test prep companies playing the game of "who can provide the most features on the sales page". 

In reality, many of these "extra features" don't provide any significant value to you the end-user. As with any test prep course, the most value will come from the quality of the content and the support provided to the student. 

Nevertheless, these are some additional features and resources that Magoosh has to offer that could truly add value to you. 

Pause subscription

Are you worried that you will not be making the most use of your limited access period? Well, fret not!

Magoosh allows you to pause your subscription, thereby saving any unused access period you have left. When you're ready to start studying again, you simply un-pause your subscription and you'll be right back where you left off.   

How cool is that? 

Now, Magoosh prevents you from abusing this policy by limiting the number of times you can pause your subscription to once per month. 

Mobile apps for TOEFL prep

Magoosh offers two mobile apps exclusively for TOEFL prep. These are the TOEFL Prep app and the TOEFL Vocabulary Flashcards app. Both of these apps are available on iOS and Android. 

The TOEFL Prep app gives you access to the TOEFL video lessons and practice questions. While the TOEFL Vocabulary Flashcards gives you access to a pool of 600 words that commonly appear on the TOEFL iBT exam.

These words are grouped into 12 sets of 50 words. And each set is rated from easy to very hard.

Using the TOEFL Vocabulary Flashcards app will not only teach you the definitions of these words, but you will also learn how these words are pronounced and how they are used in context.

Note that in order to use all the features on these Magoosh apps, your smartphone must be connected to the internet. As certain features like the access to the practice questions and video lessons on the TOEFL Prep app and the pronunciation feature of the TOEFL Vocabulary Flashcards app do not work offline. 

Speaking and Writing Templates

Magoosh provides speaking and writing templates that can help you craft your responses for the independent and the integrated tasks of these sections. 

So, if you're someone who struggles with the speaking and writing sections, you'll find these templates quite useful. 

Trial, Score Improvement, and Money Back Policies

Availability of free trial

Magoosh offers a 7-day payment free trial. This means you can sign up for this TOEFL prep course without providing any payment information. During the 7-day free trial you'll get access to:

• 24 practice questions from all 4 sections of the TOEFL
• 51 videos lessons on the structure of the TOEFL and English grammar
• Additional resources such as study schedule, flashcards, speaking/writing templates

The free trial does not include access to the Graded Writing Assessment, Ask-an-Expert feature, and full-length practice tests.

Score increase guarantee

Magoosh promises a modest 4 point total score improvement guarantee or your money back after completing their program. To be eligible for the guarantee, you'll need to provide an old official TOEFL iBT score to Magoosh at the time you sign up for the TOEFL course.

Note that this score report must be less than 2 years.

Magoosh defines completing their program as watching all 150 video lessons, attempting all 400+ practice questions, and watching the video explanations for the practice questions you answered incorrectly.

If you meet these requirements and your overall TOEFL score did not improve by at least 4 points, all you'll have to do is email a scanned copy of your new TOEFL iBT score to Magoosh and they will provide 100% of your money back. 

Money back policy

What happens if you paid for Magoosh TOEFL and you feel it's not the best fit for you? Well, Magoosh promises to give you a full-refund if you cancel your paid subscription within the first 7 days. 

All you have to do is send them an email within the first 7 days saying that you don't like the course and you want to cancel. And you'll get a full refund - no questions asked. 

Which Magoosh TOEFL Prep Course Should You Get?

When it comes to the quality of content, you can't go wrong with either course option, as these course options contain the exact same study materials.  

However, when you compare the value you get from the 6 Month Premium TOEFL course to that of the 1 Month premium TOEFL course, it's clear that the 6 Month Premium course will save you the most money if you:

1. Intend to study for the TOEFL for longer than 1 month
2. Plan to use more than 1 graded writing assessment feature

The 1 Month Premium option will be best suited for you if you're certain that you'll only study for the TOEFL for less than 30 days and you don't plan to use the graded writing assessment feature. 

How Does Magoosh TOEFL Prep Course Compare to Other Courses?

It can be helpful to compare Magoosh to other similar online prep course providers. Knowing more about how the Magoosh TOEFL prep course stacks up to its competitors can help you make a more informed buying decision. 

Magoosh TOEFL prep vs PrepScholar TOEFL prep

• PrepScholar does not offer any practice tests, while Magoosh offers up to 6 full-length practice tests.
• PrepScholar offers a 12 month access period and an unlimited prep plan, while Magoosh's prep plan is limited to 6 months. 
• PrepScholar boasts a 15 point score increase guarantee, compared to Magoosh's modest 4 point increase.
• Learn more in our full PrepScholar TOEFL review. Or check out our head-to-head comparison of Magoosh TOEFL vs PrepScholar TOEFL article for a deep dive.

Magoosh TOEFL prep vs BestMyTest TOEFL prep

• BestMyTest offers 20 practice tests, while Magoosh offers up to 6 full-length practice tests.
• BestMyTest offers custom monthly access for as short as 7 days and in monthly increments up to 6 months, while Magoosh only offers 2 options for access periods.
• BestMyTest boasts a score increase guarantee of up to 15 points, compared to Magoosh's modest 4 point increase.
• Read more in our full BestMyTest TOEFL review. Or check out our Magoosh TOEFL vs BestMyTest review.

Magoosh TOEFL prep vs Kaplan TOEFL prep

• The Kaplan TOEFL self-paced course is more expensive at $349 for only 3 months compared to Magoosh's 6 months of access at $129.
• Kaplan TOEFL offers 4 full-length practice tests coming short of Magoosh's 6 full-length practice tests.
• Kaplan TOEFL has no free trials and no money back guarantees while Magoosh offers a 7-day free trial and a 7-day refund guarantee. 
• Learn more about how the Kaplan TOEFL self-paced course stacks up in our Magoosh vs Kaplan TOEFL review. 

Magoosh TOEFL Prep FAQs

Does Magoosh TOEFL have a mobile app?

Yes. Magoosh offers two dedicated TOEFL prep mobile apps available on iOS and Android. These apps could be used to access the video lessons, practice questions, and vocabulary flashcards that come with a paid subscription to any one of Magoosh's premium TOEFL course. 

Is Magoosh enough for the TOEFL?

Yes. From our in-depth review of the Magoosh TOEFL course, we can confidently say that the content of the course is sufficient to prepare for the TOEFL. However, students who desire more 1-on-1 attention in their TOEFL prep will not find a self-paced course like Magoosh satisfactory.

Is Magoosh harder than the actual TOEFL?

The practice questions on the real TOEFL iBT have a similar difficulty level to those found in the Magoosh TOEFL course. We observed this when comparing the difficulty of questions on the reading and listening sections. 

Is Magoosh TOEFL free?

No. The Magoosh TOEFL prep course is not a free resource. Although they provide a free 7-day trial with limited access to the course content. If you're looking for free TOEFL prep resources, you can check out our article on the best TOEFL YouTube channels

How is Magoosh for TOEFL preparation?

Magoosh is one of the best TOEFL preparation courses on the market. In our comprehensive review of the best TOEFL prep courses on the market, we ranked Magoosh as the best overall. Considering the quality of the content and the quality of support they provide to their students.