Here's the real question behind the streak versus paper debate: what keeps you studying on day 41, when the novelty is gone and the test still feels far away? Both sides have a genuine case, so let me give you both honestly.
Streak tracking wins on friction. Your phone is always with you, one tap logs the session, and the app guilts you charmingly when you skip. Duolingo wrote the playbook for mobile app test prep streak tracking: visible streak counts, gentle notifications, social pressure from friends' streaks. It works because skipping starts to feel like losing something. The downside is what it optimizes for. Streaks reward showing up, not improving. You can keep a 100 day streak alive with ten lazy minutes a day that move your band score exactly zero. I've seen the screenshots. Impressive streak. Same score.
Paper planners win on honesty. Writing your plan by hand forces you to actually think about it, and a paper log of mock test scores doesn't lie to you with confetti animations. Plenty of high scorers swear by a simple notebook: date, section studied, time spent, mock scores. No algorithms, no dopamine engineering, just the work. The downside is friction in the other direction. Paper doesn't remind you, paper doesn't adapt, and paper ends up under your bed.
The pragmatic answer is both, with clear jobs. Use an IELTS TOEFL daily task app free tier for daily consistency and streaks. Use paper, or a simple notes app, for the stuff that actually matters: mock test scores, an error log, and a weekly review where you ask one question, did my score actually move? That weekly review is the part most people skip. It's also the part that makes everything else work.
Whatever system you pick, it needs a plan worth tracking. The 8-week study plan at internationalstudyhelp.fyi gives you the daily tasks, so your streaks and planners track real progress.