TOEIC Link Business Card and Name Badge Order Vocabulary: The Request-Proof-Approve-Print-Deliver Cluster for Part 4 and Part 7

A box of business cards is one of the most ordinary objects in an office, and one of the most reliable sources of TOEIC Link questions. A new employee requests business cards and a name badge, an administrative assistant fills in the order form using the company template, the print vendor sends a digital proof, someone spots a typo in the job title, a corrected proof is approved, the order goes into the print run, and the cards are delivered to the employee's desk — or to the wrong floor. ETS tests whether you can tell which point of that process a message describes. A voicemail from the print shop says the proof is ready and that printing will not begin until it has been signed off (Part 4). An order form, a proof with a handwritten correction, and a follow-up email show that a phone extension was wrong, that the fix came after the print run, and that 250 cards must be reprinted, and a question asks who pays (Part 7). Because every order goes through the same steps, the answer usually depends on the order in which things happened.

This article organizes the cluster by the way a card or badge moves from an order form to an employee's desk — request, proof, approve, print, deliver, reorder. Business cards are normally ordered through the same channel as other printed and paper supplies, so pair this with the office supplies and stationery order cluster, which covers catalogs, order minimums, and delivery cut-offs. And because cards and badges are part of a new employee's first-week checklist, read it alongside the new hire onboarding and equipment provisioning cluster. Note that the printed name badge in this article is a visual ID for events and reception desks; the electronic card that opens doors belongs to the badge access and visitor check-in cluster.

Why business card vocabulary is overweighted

Reason 1 — the proof is the point of no return. Once a proof is approved, errors become the customer's responsibility. Before approval they are corrections; after printing they are reprints. ETS builds questions around whether a mistake was caught before or after sign-off.

Reason 2 — the details are small and testable. Job title, department, phone extension, email address, office address — a card contains five or six short fields, and each one can be changed by a promotion, a transfer, or an office move. A Part 7 set only has to change one field to create a question.

Reason 3 — the vocabulary is shared by all print work. Proof, sign off, print run, quantity, turnaround time, rush order, reprint, card stock are used the same way for brochures, banners, and menus. Learn them here and they carry over.

The cluster, organized by the way an order moves

Stage 1 — request and fill in

Verbs and collocations: request business cards, fill in the order form, use the company template, choose a quantity, include a second language on the reverse side.

Nouns: order form, template, quantity, card stock, double-sided card, name badge.

Most companies control the design, so employees do not design their own cards; they fill in an order form and the details are dropped into a standard template. The choices are limited to quantity (often 250 or 500), whether the card is double-sided — for example with Japanese on the reverse — and sometimes the card stock. A Part 7 intranet notice explains that only the office manager may submit orders to the vendor and that employees must send their details to the manager by the 10th of the month to be included in the monthly batch. A question asking how a new hire can get cards by the end of the month turns on that deadline.

Stage 2 — proof and correct

Verbs and collocations: send a proof, review the proof carefully, spot a typo, mark up corrections, request a revised proof.

Nouns: digital proof, PDF proof, correction, revised proof, proofreading.

The vendor sends a digital proof, usually a PDF, and asks the customer to review it carefully. Errors are marked up and returned, and a revised proof follows. A Part 4 message from the vendor reminds the listener that the company is not responsible for errors that appear on an approved proof. In Part 7, a proof with a circled phone number and a note reading "ext. 4127, not 4172" tells you a correction was requested — but not whether it was made. Look for a second proof or a confirmation.

Stage 3 — approve and print

Verbs and collocations: approve the proof, sign off on the order, release the job to print, choose standard or rush turnaround, pay a rush fee.

Nouns: approval, sign-off, print run, turnaround time, rush order, rush fee.

Printing starts only after sign-off. The vendor quotes a turnaround time — for instance, five business days for standard orders — and offers a rush order for an extra fee. A Part 4 announcement that the vendor's printing plant will be closed for two days adds two days to every order in the queue, and a question about when cards will arrive requires adding them. Note the collocations: a proof is approved or signed off, a job is released to print, and turnaround is standard or rush, not "fast."

Stage 4 — deliver and distribute

Verbs and collocations: ship the order, deliver to reception, distribute to employees, check the order against the packing slip, report a missing box.

Nouns: shipment, packing slip, delivery address, missing item, damaged box.

Finished cards are shipped in bulk to reception or the mailroom and distributed by the office manager. A packing slip lists each employee's name and quantity. A Part 7 email saying that three boxes arrived but four names appear on the slip is a question about whose cards are missing, and the answer requires comparing the slip with the list of boxes, not reading the first line of the email.

Stage 5 — reorder and update

Verbs and collocations: reorder cards, update a job title, reprint at no charge, charge the reprint to the department, dispose of outdated cards.

Nouns: reorder, title change, reprint, vendor error, customer error, outdated cards.

Cards need reordering when they run out or when details change after a promotion, a department transfer, or an office move. Who pays depends on whose error it was: a vendor error — printing something different from the approved proof — is reprinted at no charge; a customer error that was approved is charged to the department. A Part 7 set where the approved proof already contained the wrong extension leads to a charged reprint, even though the employee complains to the vendor.

The paraphrase traps ETS builds on this cluster

Proof sent vs. proof approved. "We have emailed you the proof" means printing has not started. Look for "approved," "signed off," or "released" before choosing an answer about the print date.

Correction requested vs. correction made. A marked-up proof is a request. The revised proof or the vendor's confirmation is the evidence that the change happened.

Vendor error vs. customer error. A wrong extension is only the vendor's fault if the approved proof was correct. ETS offers "The print shop will reprint the cards for free" to the reader who assumes the vendor is always responsible.

Business days vs. calendar days. "Five business days" from a Thursday order does not end on Tuesday. Weekends and announced closures push the date back.

How to drill this cluster

Follow one order from start to finish in a short paragraph. A marketing coordinator promoted to marketing manager needs new cards; the office manager fills in the form with the new title and sends it by the 10th; the vendor sends a PDF proof on the 12th; the coordinator spots that the extension is reversed and marks up the correction; a revised proof arrives on the 13th and is signed off; the job is released to print on standard five-business-day turnaround; the plant closes for a public holiday, adding a day; the box arrives at reception, is checked against the packing slip, and the old cards are shredded. For each sentence, name the stage and say whether a mistake at that point would be free or charged. When you can do that, the Part 7 question about who pays for the reprint answers itself.

The one-sentence version

A business card or name badge order moves in a fixed order — an employee's details are submitted on an order form and placed in the company template, the vendor sends a proof that is marked up and revised until it is signed off, the job is released to print on a standard or rush turnaround, the boxes are delivered and checked against the packing slip, and any reprint is free for a vendor error but charged to the department for an error on an approved proof — and TOEIC Link tests whether you can tell which point of that process a message describes and who is responsible for the mistake.