Part 1 — Reading Correspondence

What you'll learn: how Part 1's letter/email passage is structured, what its multiple-choice and dropdown questions test, and how to handle the reply-email cloze section.

What Part 1 gives you

Part 1 presents a single letter or email — sometimes formal (a landlord, a company, an official body), sometimes informal (a friend, a relative, a coworker) — usually 200–300 words. A block of standard multiple-choice questions tests your understanding of the letter's content, tone, and purpose. Then a second section presents a reply to that letter with several blanks, each with a dropdown menu of word or phrase choices — you're not writing your own words, you're selecting the option that best completes the reply grammatically and logically.

Reading the letter strategically

Because the letter is short and dense, a full careful read is usually faster here than aggressive skim/scan — but you should still read with three questions in mind on your first pass:

• Who is writing to whom, and why? (the purpose — request, complaint, invitation, apology, update)
• What is the relationship/tone? (formal "Dear Mr. Osei" vs informal "Hey Sam")
• What specific facts appear? (dates, amounts, names, deadlines — these are what detail questions target)

Worked example

Sample letter excerpt:

Dear Ms. Alvarez,

I'm writing to follow up on the community garden plot I applied for last month. I received a confirmation email on June 3rd stating a decision would be made by June 20th, but I haven't heard anything since. My family has been looking forward to growing vegetables this summer, and I'd like to know whether a decision has been made or if there's a delay I should be aware of.

Could you also confirm whether the $25 deposit mentioned in the original posting is still required, and if so, how to submit it?

Thank you for your time,
Priya Nandan

Sample question: "Why is Priya writing to Ms. Alvarez?"

(A) To cancel her garden plot application

(B) To ask about the status of her application and a fee

(C) To complain about a late deposit charge

(D) To request a larger plot size

The correct answer is (B). Notice the trap in (C): the letter mentions a deposit, but Priya is asking about it, not complaining about being charged — a classic case of a distractor built from a real keyword ("deposit") attached to the wrong relationship to that keyword.

Handling the reply cloze

The reply section tests grammar and logical fit, not creativity. For each blank:

1. Read the full sentence around the blank first, ignoring the dropdown options.
2. Predict roughly what kind of word fits (a verb tense, a connector like "however" vs "therefore," a noun vs adjective).
3. Only then open the dropdown and match your prediction against the options — this stops you from being swayed by an option that "sounds fine" in isolation but breaks the sentence's logic.
4. Check the blank against the original letter's facts — replies often need a detail (a date, a name) that only makes sense if it matches what the letter said.

Part 1 checklist

• Identified sender, recipient, and purpose before touching questions
• Noted tone (formal/informal) — it often decides vocabulary questions
• For each MCQ, matched the answer to an explicit statement, not an assumption
• For each cloze blank, predicted the word type before opening the dropdown
• Cross-checked reply-cloze facts against the original letter

Common mistakes

• Picking a distractor that reuses a keyword from the letter but reverses or distorts its meaning.
• Choosing a cloze option that's grammatically fine but doesn't logically match the letter's facts (e.g., confirming a deposit amount the letter never stated).
• Rushing past the greeting/sign-off, which often carries tone information tested directly ("How would you describe the writer's tone?").

Recap

Part 1 rewards a careful single read of a short letter, attention to who/why/tone, and a predict-before-you-look approach to the reply cloze. Most wrong answers here come from mismatched keyword traps, not genuine misunderstanding — slow down just enough to check the relationship between a keyword and the claim built around it.