What Part 1 actually is
Part 1 gives you eleven marks and people prepare for six of them. Reading Correspondence opens the Reading Test with an email from one community member to another about an everyday social or work situation. Six questions test that email. Then comes a second, shorter text — a response to it, with five blanks — and the blanks are where the marks quietly go.
Most people treat them as a grammar exercise: read the sentence, pick the option that flows, move on. That works right up until the options are all perfectly grammatical, which is what a well-built blank looks like. The blanks test whether the reply is consistent with the email you just read, not whether the sentence is well formed.
Put it the hard way: every option fits the sentence. Only one fits the situation.
The failure: the fluency default
Under time pressure your ear takes over. You stop reading and start listening for the option that sounds finished — and every option sounds finished. So you take the one that reuses a word from the email, and never check whether the thing you chose is true of these two people.
It feels like bad luck rather than error, because nothing about your answer was wrong as English. That is why it goes uncorrected for months.
A worked blank (original AlmiWorld practice item)
The main email, in extract:
Hi Dana,
I'm finally sorting out the back garden this weekend, and I remembered you wanted to split the cost of a wheelbarrow rental. I've booked the place on Mercer Street for Saturday. They open at eight, but I'd rather not be dragging things about before the kids are up, so I've put us down for ten. My brother's van is free either day, so we could push it to Sunday — although Marta next door is having her deck redone Sunday and the drive will be blocked all morning. Don't worry about the deposit, by the way. I've already put it on my card.
Priya
The response, with one blank:
Hi Priya,
Saturday at ten suits me — I'll walk over and we can go together. ________, so I'll bring cash and settle up with you when we're back.
Dana
Choose the best option for the blank:
- A. You've already covered the deposit
- B. The deposit is due when we pick the wheelbarrow up
- C. I'll sort the deposit out with the rental place
- D. Your having settled the deposit in advance is much appreciated
- E. I hadn't realised the deposit would be that steep
Read all five again before the explanation. Each is a grammatical English clause, and each attaches cleanly to "so I'll bring cash and settle up with you when we're back." Nothing about the sentence tells you which is right.
A is correct. Priya's email says she has already put the deposit on her card. That is why Dana owes her money, why she is bringing cash, and why she will settle up afterwards. The clause explains the one that follows it, and it matches the email.
B is defeated by one line, and nothing else. It describes how rentals usually work — which is precisely the trap, because that is plausible general knowledge rather than something in this email. Priya wrote that the deposit is already paid. If you did not go back and check, B reads better than A.
C is wrong twice over. It also contradicts the paid-already line, and it breaks the sentence's logic: if Dana settles with the rental place, there is no reason to settle up with Priya.
D is true and still wrong. The fact is right — Priya did pay in advance. But this is a note between neighbours about a wheelbarrow, and D belongs in a letter from a bank. Part 1's register is friendly and familiar, and the formal option is a distractor.
E invents a fact. The email never says what the deposit costs, and the reply cannot know something the email did not tell it. A blank that adds information is a blank you got wrong.
The two halves ask different questions
The six comprehension questions ask did you find it. The five blanks ask does this hold together with what you read. Same passage, different skill — and scanning for keywords does not help with the second, because the keyword usually sits in all of the options.
There is a second wrinkle in the six. The register is conversational, social, friendly and familiar, and friendly writers leave things implied. Priya never writes "Sunday doesn't work." She writes that Marta's deck is being redone and the drive will be blocked all morning. A question can reasonably ask why she mentions the deck at all — and the answer is not on the page as a sentence. Questions on a friendly email are often about what was implied rather than stated.
There is also nowhere to hide. Part 3 is the one Reading part that lets you choose an option for information that is not stated in the text. Part 1 does not.
The shape that works
- Read the email once for the situation, not for keywords: who wants what, what is already settled, what is still open, and what has already been paid for or done.
- Read the whole reply through before you touch a dropdown. The reply has its own storyline, and later sentences frequently settle earlier blanks.
- For each blank, read the complete sentence, including everything after the blank. The words on the far side are usually what rule options out.
- Test each option against the email, not against your ear: "is this true of these two people, right now?" — not "does this sound right?"
- When two options survive that test, split them on register. The stiff, formal option is almost never the intended one.
- Answer every blank. There are no points deducted for wrong answers, so a guess is free.
What actually costs you the mark
- Choosing on fluency. All the options are fluent. Fluency carries no information here.
- Plausible general knowledge. How deposits, shifts, refunds and bookings normally work is not evidence. Only this email is evidence.
- Reading only up to the blank. Half the disqualifying detail lives on the far side of it.
- Not going back to the email. It takes six seconds and it is the entire skill.
- Formal English as a safety instinct. In Part 1, formality is a distractor, not a hedge.
- Running out of room. Reading runs 43–56 minutes across four parts, timed part by part — the test moves on by itself, and you can't go back to a previous part.
- Leaving a blank empty. Nothing is deducted for a wrong answer, so never do this.
Try one
[Try Reading Part 1 →] — one full task, marked, no card required.