TOEIC Part 6 Text Completion: Vocabulary and Cohesion

In TOEIC Part 5, one sentence may contain nearly everything you need. In Part 6, the decisive clue can sit one or two sentences away.

The venue is provisionally reserved through Friday. The deposit has not been paid. We will therefore ______ signing the catering contract until Finance confirms the budget.

A. follow through on B. hold off on C. turn down D. rule out

The answer is B, hold off on. The team will delay an action while waiting for a named trigger. It has not rejected the contract or removed it from consideration. The earlier sentences establish the temporary status that makes the choice precise.

ETS's current TOEIC Listening and Reading handbook calls Part 6 Text Completion. You read texts with missing words, phrases, or sentences and choose the best answer from four options. Official sample material includes an email and tests more than local grammar: one gap requires a sentence that fits the purpose and progression of the complete message.

That cross-sentence requirement is this lesson's focus. Use the TOEIC vocabulary hub for more workplace practice and Exam English for the full exam collection.

Build a status chain before choosing

For every gap, identify four things:

1. Current status: Is the plan merely suggested, formally active but awaiting confirmation, delayed, rejected, or complete?
2. Relationship: Does the missing language add, contrast, concede, explain, or sequence?
3. Commitment: Has someone promised contact, completion, or only a later decision?
4. Reference: What earlier noun, date, condition, or problem does the sentence depend on?

These questions stop you from treating Part 6 as four unrelated Part 5 items.

Six expressions that organize a workplace text

Tentative: a current answer that is not firm

A tentative date, plan, conclusion, or agreement is a real current answer that may still change:

We have set a tentative delivery date of 12 October, but both carriers are still checking capacity.

Tentative does not mean low quality or imaginary. It says not yet confirmed. When a text names a formal step and the arrangement already exists, provisional may be more precise.

Provisional: active now, pending a defined step

A provisional booking, approval, schedule, or figure has real working status but is not final because a defined confirmation step remains:

The ballroom is provisionally reserved, pending payment of the deposit.

The booking exists now. Pending the deposit names what prevents it from becoming final. Do not read provisional as “only an idea,” and avoid the false pattern provisional on approval. Use provisional, pending approval or provisionally approved, subject to review.

Hold off on: delay without rejecting

To hold off on + noun or gerund is to delay starting or doing something without deciding against it:

Please hold off on printing the brochures until the address is confirmed.

Cancel means the event or action will not happen. Hold off on leaves it available for later. The phrase does not promise when work will resume unless the text supplies a time or trigger.

Follow through on: complete an earlier commitment

To follow through on a promise, plan, intention, or responsibility is to take the actions needed to honor or complete it:

Marta promised to obtain the permit, and she followed through on that commitment by filing the application on Monday.

Follow up on can mean seeking information or making another contact. Follow through on foregrounds continuity from an earlier commitment to the necessary action. A progressive form—is following through—does not itself guarantee completion.

Nonetheless: the next point holds despite the first

Nonetheless concedes a fact and then states what remains true:

Registrations are below forecast. Nonetheless, the workshop will proceed because the venue fee is non-refundable.

It is a formal adverb, not a conjunction or preposition. Use a full stop or semicolon when it alone relates independent clauses. It does not deny the first point and does not express a result.

Whereas: contrast two complete facts

Whereas places two facts or situations side by side:

The morning session is intended for new staff, whereas the afternoon workshop assumes prior experience.

It normally joins complete clauses in the active pattern taught here. It does not mean because, and unlike although, it does not inherently frame one fact as surprising despite the other.

Worked Part 6 text

This email and all answer options are original practice, not ETS material.

Questions 1–4 refer to the following email

To: Regional Sales Team From: Hana Ortiz Subject: October product workshop

Thank you for responding to the scheduling poll. We have set a (1) ______ date of 14 October, but two presenters have not yet confirmed their availability. The conference room, by contrast, is provisionally reserved through Wednesday, pending receipt of our deposit.

Because the agenda may still change, please (2) ______ sending invitations to clients until I confirm the speakers. Registrations from our own staff are lower than expected. (3) ______, we will continue with the workshop because the training budget and room allocation have already been approved.

I will contact both presenters tomorrow morning and send the final agenda by 3 p.m. (4) ______

Best, Hana

1. A compulsory B tentative C completed D corroborated
2. A follow through on B rule out C hold off on D turn down
3. A As a result B For example C Nonetheless D Similarly
4. A The client invitations were printed last month. B Please disregard all earlier messages about staff training. C I will follow through on that commitment even if one presenter declines. D The conference room contains forty blue chairs.

Answers: use the whole email

1. B, tentative

The date is the current answer, but presenter availability is unconfirmed and the sentence says it may still change. The room has a different status: it is already held through a real process and awaits one defined step, so provisionally reserved, pending the deposit fits there.

2. C, hold off on

The email asks readers to delay sending invitations until a trigger occurs. Hold off on + gerund supplies the correct form and preserves the action as a later possibility. Turn down would reject an offer or request; rule out would remove an option; follow through on would mean carry an earlier commitment toward completion.

3. C, nonetheless

Low registration remains true, yet the workshop will proceed despite it. As a result would wrongly present continuation as caused by low registration. Similarly and for example express different relationships.

4. C, complete-sentence option

The preceding sentence promises a final agenda by 3 p.m. Option C refers naturally to that commitment and says the writer will honour it even if a presenter declines. A contradicts the request not to send materials yet; B has no basis; D is irrelevant to the email's purpose.

This last gap cannot be solved from grammar alone. You need the message's unfinished commitment and expected closing move.

Why Part 6 is not Part 5 with paragraphs

Consider these two versions:

Please ______ printing the schedule.

Without more context, both delaying and completing the printing could be plausible depending on the options.

The final room number will arrive at noon. Please ______ printing the schedule until then.

Now hold off on is licensed by a waiting condition. The extra sentence changes the answer.

Similarly, compare:

The figures are tentative.

This only says they are not firm.

The finance team has completed the figures, which are now in use pending the external audit.

That context supports provisional figures: they exist as the current working set and await a defined certification step.

Cohesion clues worth marking

• but, yet, although, nonetheless: look for concession or contrast.
• pending, subject to, until, once: identify an outstanding condition or trigger.
• this, that, these, such: locate the exact earlier referent.
• first, then, by Friday, afterward: reconstruct sequence.
• promised, agreed, will, responsible for: track commitment and ownership.
• whereas, by contrast: compare two facts that both remain true.

Do not reduce these to a synonym list. Their value comes from the relationship they establish across the text.

Common mistakes

• Choosing provisional merely because it sounds more formal than tentative.
• Reading a delay as cancellation. Hold off on keeps the action open.
• Assuming a promise to follow through on something proves it has already been completed.
• Treating nonetheless as cause or denial rather than concession.
• Using whereas with a fragment when the intended pattern needs two complete clauses.
• Solving a whole-sentence gap from the sentence immediately before it while ignoring the writer's purpose.
• Importing an answer because it contains vocabulary from the text even though it breaks the status chain.

Quick cross-sentence check

1. The hotel is holding twenty rooms until Monday, when the organizer must pay a deposit. Which description is most precise?

A. The rooms are tentatively imagined. B. The rooms are provisionally reserved. C. The rooms have been ruled out.

2. A manager promised to send revised figures. She sends them at the agreed time. What did she do?

A. She followed through on the promise. B. She held off on the promise. C. She turned down the promise.

3. Sales fell below target. The company will open the second location anyway because the lease is signed. Which connector fits?

A. Therefore B. Nonetheless C. For example

Answers: 1 B, because a real reservation exists pending one step; 2 A, because later action honors the earlier commitment; 3 B, because the opening proceeds despite the disappointing sales fact.

Fresh practice

Write a four-gap internal memo about a supplier visit. Include one local grammar gap, one status-word gap, one connector gap, and one whole-sentence gap. For each answer, underline at least one clue outside the sentence containing the blank. If no outside clue matters, revise the item so it trains Part 6 cohesion rather than isolated sentence completion.

To practise workplace vocabulary through realistic decisions, try Lyra Practice.

Sources

• TOEIC Listening and Reading Test Examinee Handbook — ETS
• TOEIC preparation materials — ETS
• TOEIC Listening and Reading overview — ETS

Related

• TOEIC Part 5 Vocabulary and Collocations
• TOEIC Vocabulary List by Workplace Situation
• TOEIC Reading Part 7: Email Near-Words That Change the Meaning
• TOEIC Writing: Respond to a Written Request Like a Colleague

Lyra Practice is not affiliated with or endorsed by ETS.