PTE Reorder Paragraphs | FREE PTE Tutorials 

The PTE Reorder Paragraphs questions are often cited as one of the most challenging questions types in PTE. Right from how to approach these questions to even the marking scheme, are confusing for most students.

In this article we will try to make this simpler for you 🙂

Let’s understand what we can do to get full marks in PTE Reorder Paragraphs questions. If you want to read more tips and tricks please see the PTE Reorder Paragraphs Tips and Tricks article.

First of all, this is how this question type looks like:

On left hand side you will see a number of paragraphs or sentences. These all belong to one text, but have been arranged in a jumbled order i.e. their order is wrong. So, if you read them from top to bottom the text will not make sense.

Your task is to drag each paragraph from left and drop it on to the right pane in the correct order. Once you have done that, if someone reads from top to bottom in the right side, he should be able to understand the whole text.

So, that is what PTE Reorder Paragraphs is all about!

Important point:

Students are often confused about the marking scheme in these questions. You might think that you will get points for every paragraph that you put in the right place. No! Instead you will get points for arranging each pair in the right order. So, if 2 and 3 are in correct order, you will get a point for that.

This scoring rule tells us that we need to adjust our approach accordingly! Instead of trying to put each paragraph on its own at the right place we should try to identify each pair in the correct order. Looking at all the jumbled paragraphs in one go can be very confusing. Breaking it down in pairs makes it much more manageable.

In our special Tips and Tricks for PTE Reorder Paragraphs article you can learn some great tips for PTE reorder paragraphs. But if we have to pick the most important point it is this:

Learn to identify the link between sentences!

Let us explain this to you:

The sentences or paragraphs in a text are in a certain for a reason – that is how they make sense. If sentence two is an example of a concept, then it makes sense that the concept is introduced before talking about the example. Similarly if a sentence has a pronoun, we can expect that the noun corresponding to it is in the sentences or paragraphs before it. After all, that is the rule of grammar as well as that is what makes logical sense.

So, as long as you can identify how sentences are related to each other you will be able to arrange them in the right order!

Getting the first sentence is usually the simplest part. This sentence or paragraph is independent in nature and fully complete in itself. It is the one that introduces a theme or sets the tone for the remainder of the text.

That should be your goal in PTE Reorder questions – identify the first sentence and then find which sentence is best linked to it. That will help you get your first pair in the right order. Then you just need to repeat the process and find the next linked sentence, and so on.

In these questions keep some time in the end for a review – a few seconds to read from top to bottom – it will help you pick any mistake you might have made.

These concepts become clearer with practice. For practice get the PTE Mock Tests that come with score cards, and other practice tests and materials! Once you practice doing it yourself you will become faster and better at this.