PrepScholar TOEFL Prep Course Review (2025) 

PrepScholar is a relatively new company that is disrupting the test prep industry using technology. They have found a way to bring a customized online learning experience to students preparing for standardized tests without breaking the bank. 

But can PrepScholar's use of technology help you crush it on a subjective test like the TOEFL iBT exam?

To help our readers answer this question, our team of experts have spent several weeks reviewing every aspect of the PrepScholar TOEFL course.

And we are confident that after reading this comprehensive review article, you will know for certain if PrepScholar has what you need to get the TOEFL score you desire.

Is the PrepScholar TOEFL Prep Course Right for You? 

Who we recommend the course for:

• Students who struggle with the TOEFL reading and listening sections
• Students looking for a budget course that includes feedback on the TOEFL speaking section

Who we don't recommend the course for:

• Students looking for full-length practice tests
• Visual learners who learn best from video instructions

PrepScholar TOEFL Video Review

Looking to find out what's inside the PrepScholar TOEFL course? Then check out our unbiased video review below. In this video, our reviewer, Chuky, exposes the pros and cons of this course in different key areas that are crucial for a high TOEFL iBT score. 

PrepScholar TOEFL Overview

PrepScholar's line-up of online TOEFL prep courses include two self-paced options; the Best-Selling TOEFL course and the Master TOEFL course. 

These two course options contain the same core TOEFL prep curriculum, and only differ in terms of the access periods. The Best-Selling course has an access period of 365 days (1 year), while the Master course gives you an unlimited or lifetime access (subject to PrepScholar's terms of service).

PrepScholar TOEFL prep course highlights

Here are the main features of PrepScholar's TOEFL course:

• Tailored lessons and practice drills: PrepScholar distinguishes itself from other TOEFL prep providers by using an adaptive learning technology to generate lessons and practice questions. The end result is that every user of the PrepScholar TOEFL course receives lessons and practice questions in a personalized and digestible manner. 
• Support: Students signed up to PrepScholar's TOEFL receive up to 8 speaking and 4 writing reviews. In addition, PrepScholar's learning technology does a great job of identifying your weak areas in the reading and listening sections, and will recommend lessons/strategies that will help you improve. 
• Score increase guarantee: PrepScholar promises a bold 15 point score increase money back guarantee to students who meet certain criteria.

User Experience

As mentioned earlier, PrepScholar's use of an adaptive learning technology makes the TOEFL learning experience quite unique for each student.

Upon signing up for PrepScholar TOEFL, you will be required to complete an adaptive diagnostic test that consists of 30 reading questions.

Working on the back end, PrepScholar's algorithm then analyzes your performance on this TOEFL diagnostic test and generates your first weekly customized lessons/quizzes that will appear on your dashboard. 

PrepScholar takes the approach of discovering your weak and strong areas early and then focusing the majority of your learning on improving these weak areas and not your strong areas. 

So, it's important to take this diagnostic test seriously to allow the algorithm to properly identify your true weak points.

On the strategies tab, located on the top navigation, you'll find additional practice drills and general lessons on TOEFL strategies. These additional practice drills include the 8 speaking and 4 writing prompts that you can complete and submit for feedback. 

Overall, the PrepScholar TOEFL platform has a very simple user interface. So, users should have no issues navigating through the platform. 

Lesson Quality

PrepScholar's lessons are presented in a text format and not with video. In a sense, studying with the course feels like studying with an E-book.

So, if you're someone who prefers to learn through video, you might find these TOEFL lessons disengaging.

On occasion, PrepScholar supplements these text-based lessons with videos from their TOEFL YouTube channel. However, these YouTube videos were all published before the TOEFL iBT exam was modified in 2019, and may contain outdated information. 

The assigned lessons that appear on the dashboard focus entirely on test-taking strategies for the reading and listening section questions. These lessons are rated as core or advanced, and are suggested according to your current skill level.

Core lessons target students who PrepScholar predicts will score below 90 on the TOEFL iBT exam. While advanced lessons are for students aiming to score above a 90. 

At the end of each dashboard lesson, you'll get a quiz with up to 8 questions that test what you've learned in the lesson. These quizzes must be completed to check off the lessons from the dashboard. 

Overall, we found the lessons on skill-building for the reading and listening section to be very comprehensive and quite effective. PrepScholar's strategy of choosing lessons/quizzes in these sections that adapt to a learner's skill level makes for a less-stressful and fun learning experience. 

However, when we reviewed the lessons on the speaking and writing sections, we did not find them to be in-depth, compared to those from PrepScholar's close competitor Magoosh TOEFL. 

While PrepScholar advertises over 150+ hours of lessons in this course, the lessons on speaking and writing are only a small slice of that number. Which is quite disappointing, when you consider that the TOEFL speaking and writing sections tend to be where most students struggle. 

Review of PrepScholar TOEFL Practice Questions & Tests

Practice questions

While PrepScholar boasts a practice question bank with over 1000 TOEFL questions, the large majority of these questions are for the reading and listening sections.

Practice questions on the speaking and writing sections only make up about 60 questions. And most of these questions only focus on the independent speaking and writing tasks.

When comparing the difficulty levels of the reading and listening questions to those on the real TOEFL iBT we found them to be easier. This is the opposite of what you want in your study material as you prepare for the TOEFL iBT exam.

As it's best to practice with questions that are just as difficult or even more difficult than those on the real TOEFL iBT exam.

In addition, the practice question environment for the speaking and writing sections are not like those on the real TOEFL iBT exam. For example, there are no countdown timers that appear when attempting these questions. So, you'll need to mimic the real TOEFL environment by timing yourself appropriately. 

Given the combination of a subpar practice question environment, few number of questions on the integrated speaking/writing section tasks, and the low difficulty questions on the reading and listening sections, we rated PrepScholar below average in this category. 

We'll highly recommend users of this course to supplement their learning with official TOEFL iBT practice questions for a well-rounded prep.

Practice test experience

Unlike other TOEFL prep providers, PrepScholar does not provide any full-length practice tests as part of their TOEFL course.

They believe that students preparing for the TOEFL will perform best if they focus on mastering the skills needed to tackle each of the 4 TOEFL sections, and not by taking series of practice tests. 

From their perspective, studying with TOEFL practice tests alone is not an effective way to prepare for the TOEFL, as they are only great at helping you build the endurance you need to sit through the 3 hour TOEFL iBT exam.

So, if you're someone who holds a different opinion from PrepScholar, you'll find the lack of full-length practice tests in this course disappointing. 

While we agree with PrepScholar that using full-length practice tests alone is not an effective preparation method, we still see the need to offer full-length practice test as an option in a TOEFL prep course. 

Therefore, we ranked PrepScholar lower than its competition in this category.

Quality of answer explanations 

Overall, the answer explanations to questions on the reading and listening sections are quite good. Here, you'll find explanations justifying why a particular choice is correct and why each of the other choices are wrong. 

As for the speaking and writing section, we could not find any answer explanations for integrated tasks. Again, this is because the bulk of the practice questions on their speaking and writing sections focus on the independent tasks and not the integrated tasks.

PrepScholar does not offer any further assistance to students who might need more clarification on answer explanations. Compared to Magoosh TOEFL, that provides an Unlimited Ask-an-Expert feature. 

We found this to be quite confusing, as on the PrepScholar sales page, one of the TOEFL course features states "Unlimited Email Support on Questions". Upon contacting their customer support, we were told that this feature is only applicable to students encountering technical difficulties on the platform, and is not for those seeking individual guidance. 

Support

As you complete the quizzes that appear on your dashboard, the algorithm does a good job of tracking your performance over time across the different reading and listening skill areas. 

Your progress in these different skill areas is shown on the Your Skill Progress chart on the dashboard and also in the Progress section - on the top navigation bar.

Your skill levels in these sections are banded as Core, Advanced, and Mastery (the highest skill level). And in the case that PrepScholar determines that your skill in a particular area is not improving over time, your skill level will be marked as Paused. 

In our opinion, students will see the most benefits of PrepScholar's customized learning algorithm on their reading and listening section scores, and not much on their speaking and writing section scores. 

This is because their algorithm can only accurately measure your performance on the objective reading and listening sections, compared to the speaking and writing sections that are too subjective and require a TOEFL expert to evaluate. 

So, what level of support can you expect from PrepScholar on your speaking and writing essays?

To answer that question, we put PrepScholar to the test by submitting speaking and writing responses for review. 

The feedback we received on our speaking responses were graded on a 4-point scale in 3 categories - Delivery, Language Use, and Topic Development. This is the same grading rubric that ETS graders use. 

Your scores in these 3 categories are then followed up by suggestions for improvement and a sample response to the same question that received an overall score of 4. 

After submitting your response, you can expect feedback from PrepScholar within 7 business days. However, this was not our experience, as we observed delays from PrepScholar. 

Overall, we found the quality of support on the PrepScholar TOEFL course to be satisfactory in the reading and listening sections but average in the more important speaking and writing sections. 

PrepScholar TOEFL Pricing

The Best-Selling TOEFL course starts at $187, while the Master TOEFL course starts at $385. 

At $187 and 1 year of access, the Best-Selling course comes out to a monthly cost of $15.58 per month of access. From this perspective, PrepScholar can be considered cheaper than its close competitors Magoosh TOEFL prep and BestMyTest TOEFL prep. 

However, compared to some of its competition, PrepScholar does not offer any payment plans and rarely has limited discount offers on its courses. 

Other Features and Resources

Here are some additional features and resources that PrepScholar has to offer that we found to be quite helpful. 

Weekly progress 

Rather than making all TOEFL lessons accessible at once, PrepScholar drips lessons to the dashboard on a weekly basis. As you complete the weekly lessons, the time you spend actively studying is logged for the week.

And no, time spent on other websites does not count, even if you have the PrepScholar window open.

Email reminders

At the beginning of each week, you'll receive an email from the Director of PrepScholar reminding you to set your study schedule for the week. This email will also share information about how many hours you spent studying for the previous week, the total number of hours you've spent on the platform, and the lessons you completed in the previous week.

These email reminders serve as a good nudge, keeping you on track as you go through the TOEFL course.

Accountability partners

Another feature PrepScholar provides to keep you motivated is the ability to add someone who can hold you accountable. At any point, you can add the contact information of a helpful friend or parent whom PrepScholar will share your study schedule with.

Knowing your study schedule, this person could then check in with you during the week, providing any moral support you might need to meet your goals for the week.  

Interactive TOEFL vocabulary course

A purchase of this TOEFL course includes access to PrepScholar's TOEFL vocab course, which can be found on the strategies section of the online platform. The course consists of over 20 interactive lessons (each containing 15 words) that are likely to appear on the TOEFL iBT exam.

You will not only learn the definition of these words but you will also learn how these words are pronounced and how they are used in a sentence. In addition, there are different study modes you can choose from that make learning these words fun and engaging. 

Trial, Score Improvement, and Money Back Policies

Availability of free trial

PrepScholar offers a 5-day free trial. Although your payment information is required to unlock this free 5-day trial, you will not be charged until the end of the trial period. 

This trial period is defined as 5 days (120 hours) from the date a diagnostic test is completed on the account, or 20 days (480 hours) from the date your payment information is submitted, whichever comes sooner. 

During this trial period, you will have full access to everything PrepScholar has to offer in its TOEFL prep course, except the support features like writing and speaking reviews.

If you decide not to continue with the TOEFL course after the trial period, you must email PrepScholar to cancel before your trial period ends. 

Score increase guarantee

PrepScholar promises a bold 15 point total score improvement guarantee or your money back after finishing the TOEFL course. With the exception of BestMyTest, there is no other TOEFL prep course provider that promises a score increase guarantee this high.  

To be eligible for the guarantee, you'll need to send your Before and After official TOEFL iBT score directly from ETS to PrepScholar within 360 days from the date you paid for the TOEFL course.  

This Before score report should be no more than 4 years from the date you signed up for your PrepScholar TOEFL course. While the After score report should be no more than 60 days from the date you finished the TOEFL course, and must show an overall score below 110 but less than 15 points higher than your Before overall score. 

PrepScholar defines finishing their course as taking all customized lessons and practice questions, and attaining a Mastery skill level on these lessons as shown by your progress report.

Note that this score guarantee is limited to one individual per account per household. As it is against the PrepScholar's terms of service for more than one person to use a paid account at any time. And where there are multiple accounts in a household, only 1 account can receive the score guarantee.

Money back policy

If you've paid for the PrepScholar TOEFL course and you're not satisfied with the course for any reason, PrepScholar will give you a full-refund if you cancel your paid subscription within 5 days (120 hours) from taking the diagnostic test.

You can request this refund by calling PrepScholar's customer service or sending an email to toefl@prepscholar.com. 

Which PrepScholar TOEFL Prep Course Should You Get?

Since both the Master and the Best-Selling TOEFL prep courses provide the same features, your choice simply depends on whether you plan to study for the TOEFL for 1 year or more.

Students with an above average English language proficiency would find the Best-Selling course with 1 year of TOEFL prep sufficient. While students attempting the TOEFL exam with an intermediate or basic level of English proficiency might benefit from enrolling in the Master TOEFL course.

Since these type of students will need a much longer time to improve their English language skills along their journey of preparing for the TOEFL exam.  

How Does PrepScholar TOEFL Prep Course Compare to Other Courses?

So, how well does PrepScholar stack up against the competition? Here, we compare PrepScholar to Magoosh, BestMyTest, and Kaplan.

PrepScholar TOEFL prep vs Magoosh TOEFL prep

• Magoosh offers up to 6 full-length practice tests, while PrepScholar has no practice tests.
• Magoosh's maximum access period is 6 months compared to PrepScholar's unlimited access option
• Magoosh offers a modest 4 point score increase guarantee, compared to PrepScholar's 15 point increase.
• Learn more in our full Magoosh TOEFL review. Or check out our comparison of Magoosh TOEFL vs PrepScholar TOEFL article for a deep dive.

PrepScholar TOEFL prep vs BestMyTest TOEFL prep

• BestMyTest has 20 full-length practice tests, while PrepScholar offers no full-length practice tests.
• BestMyTest access periods are more flexible, with options as short as 7 days and anywhere from 1 - 6 months, while PrepScholar only offers 12 months and unlimited access periods.
• While BestMyTest and PrepScholar have the highest TOEFL score increase guarantees at 15 points, the eligibility requirements from BestMyTest are less flexible than those from PrepScholar.
• Find out more about BestMyTest in our full BestMyTest TOEFL review. Or check out our PrepScholar TOEFL vs BestMyTest review.

PrepScholar TOEFL prep vs Kaplan TOEFL prep

• Kaplan's TOEFL self-paced course with just 3 months of access is priced higher at $349, compared to PrepScholar's 1 year access at $187.
• Kaplan TOEFL offers 4 full-length practice tests which beats PrepScholar with no full-length practice tests.
• Kaplan's TOEFL course offers no risk-free trials while PrepScholar offers a 5-day free trial and a 5-day refund guarantee for paid accounts.
• Learn more about Kaplan's TOEFL self-paced course in our Kaplan TOEFL review. 

PrepScholar TOEFL Prep FAQs

Does PrepScholar TOEFL have a mobile app?

No. PrepScholar does not offer any mobile apps that support the TOEFL prep course. 

Is PrepScholar TOEFL prep good?

Yes it is. Following our comprehensive review, we found PrepScholar TOEFL prep to be a good choice for students looking for customized lessons in a self-paced course. As you go through the TOEFL course, PrepScholar collects your data and feeds that into an algorithm. This algorithm then generates lessons and quizzes that adapt to your skill level, making sure that you're studying with materials that are right for you at all times. 

Is PrepScholar TOEFL better than Magoosh TOEFL?

PrepScholar's customized approach to test-prep gives them a slight edge over Magoosh which takes a one-size-fits-all approach. However, when it comes to the quality of learning materials and the amount of support, you'll find that Magoosh's self-paced TOEFL course is better than PrepScholar's. Check out our Magoosh TOEFL vs PrepScholar TOEFL comparison review for more.