The TOEFL Test Preparation MOOC will launch its third round this January 25, 2017. Registration is open.
So far this course, one of the most popular on the edX.org platform, has attracted thousand of students worldwide.
However, a number of students have expressed negative opinions regarding the course’s “poor and inadequate content”.
David C, a student who has completed the course, has given it a 2.5 star rating on edX, saying, “The amount of practice questions is very little, and most of them are the same that you can get as ‘free content’ on the ETS website, therefore, they are not providing anything new. In the discussion threads, the instructors mostly used ‘copy-paste’ bits of text to answer to our questions – sometimes up to the point that the answer received wasn’t related to the question asked.”
“Students who completed the course have used other platforms too to prepare for the test.”
Another critique is based on the way ETS handles its Twitter community. Students are asked to join the community and this is used a promotional campaign as the same tweets appear from multiple profiles.
