PTE Core Reorder Paragraphs

What the task asks

Several text boxes appear in a column on the left of the screen, in random order. Together they make up one short passage, usually a sentence or two per box. You drag each box into the panel on the right, arranging them in the order that makes the passage read correctly; arrow buttons let you nudge a box up or down once it is placed. There is no per-item timer. The task runs on the shared Part 2 reading clock, and because it involves reading every box at least twice, it is the item most likely to eat the minutes you need elsewhere.

The passages are short pieces of explanatory or narrative writing: how a scheme was introduced and what happened next, why a decision was taken and its result, a sequence of events in a local story. What makes them solvable is that English prose is full of signals about order. A sentence that begins with However cannot be first. A sentence that says she needs an earlier sentence that named her. A sentence that says as a result needs a cause before it. Reading for those signals, rather than for meaning alone, is the whole technique.

How it is scored

Scoring is partial credit, awarded per correctly ordered adjacent pair. If the correct order is A, B, C, D, E, the pairs that earn points are AB, BC, CD and DE: one point each, so five boxes carry a maximum of four. Your sequence is checked pair by pair, and every pair that matches a pair in the correct order scores, wherever it sits in your answer. The task contributes to your Reading score only.

Two examples make the rule concrete. Put the right five boxes in the order A, C, B, D, E and you score 1: only DE survives. Put them in B, A, C, D, E and you score 2, because CD and DE are intact. Getting the opening pair wrong but the rest right is worth most of the points, and a single box dragged to the wrong place breaks at most two pairs. There is no negative marking.

How our practice scorer grades it

When you submit an order here it is marked automatically and exactly by that rule: each adjacent pair in your answer compared with the correct sequence, one point per match, no deductions. The correct order is revealed immediately, side by side with yours, with the pairs you got right highlighted and a short note on each box explaining the signal that fixes its position: the pronoun, the connector, the time word, the topic sentence. Your score across items is shown on the 10 to 90 scale with the CLB level next to it.

The number is a practice estimate. The marking rule is the Pearson rule and the passages are ours.

A worked example

Box 2 is the only one that introduces its subject with a full noun phrase, a small design firm in Halifax, and gives a time, last year. Nothing in it points backwards, so it is first. Box 4 explains how the arrangement worked; the same number of hours only makes sense after we know there is a four-day week to compare with, so it follows 2. Box 3 begins with However, a contrast, and the thing it contrasts with is the plan just described; it comes third. Box 1 begins with As a result and reports an outcome, and the arrangement refers back to everything before it; it closes the passage.

The correct order is 2, 4, 3, 1, worth three points for the pairs 2-4, 4-3 and 3-1. Notice that every decision came from a signal word or a reference, not from guessing what a four-day week is like. Someone who swapped 3 and 1, reasoning that the result sounds like it should come before the difficulty, would still earn one point for the 2-4 pair.

Five habits that raise the score

1. Find the opener first. It names its subject in full, carries no pronoun that needs an antecedent, and starts with no connector. There is usually only one candidate.
2. Match every pronoun to its noun. It, they, this, the scheme. Each one points at an earlier box, and that earlier box is almost always the one directly before.
3. Use connectors as arrows. However and but follow a claim; as a result and therefore follow a cause; finally and since then point to the end.
4. Build pairs, not a whole sequence. Scoring is by pairs, so lock in the two boxes you are surest about together, then attach the rest. Even an imperfect chain built from solid pairs earns most of the marks.
5. Read the finished passage straight through once. If a sentence jolts, swap it and read again. Then move on; two to three minutes is a fair budget for this item.

The mistakes that cost the most

• Starting with the most interesting box. The opener is often the plainest sentence in the set. Drama comes later.
• Placing a However box first. A contrast needs something to contrast with. The same applies to Also, In addition and This.
• Ordering by what seems logical rather than by what the words say. Your sense of how events usually go is not evidence. The pronouns and connectors are.
• Spending six minutes on one set. Four points at most, and the fill-in-the-blanks items waiting on the same clock carry more.
• Leaving boxes in the left panel. An unplaced box cannot form a pair. Always move everything across, even if the last two are a guess.

Quick answers

How many Reorder Paragraphs items are in PTE Core?

Two or three, in Part 2. The exam guide shows the full reading section and its shared clock.

Do I get credit if only part of the order is right?

Yes. Every correctly ordered adjacent pair earns a point regardless of what surrounds it. A sequence with two boxes swapped still scores most of the available points.

Is there negative marking?

No. A wrong pair simply earns nothing. Always submit a complete order.

How is the first box worth more if every pair scores the same?

Because the opener anchors the chain. Get it wrong and the box that should have been first ends up breaking a pair somewhere else as well. Spending your first thirty seconds on the opener is the best investment in the item.