Transition Questions

The question on these problems will always be worded exactly the same: "Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?" Additionally, there will be a blank space in the text, generally at the beginning of a sentence. The answer choices will be various transition words or phrases. This is the second to last type of Reading & Writing section, so of the 27 problems in the module, these will fall close to the end.

Start by reading the passage up to the blank. Summarize each sentence in your own words (either in your head or with the annotation tool), and get a good feel for what the passage is saying up until the blank.

Once you have a good feel for the passage up to the blank, read the text that follows the blank. Summarize each sentence in your own words, and ask yourself how the text following the blank relates to the content before the blank.

As precisely as possible, try to identify the relationship between the text after the blank, and the content that comes before it. Does the text after the blank happen as a result of the content before it? Does it say something that contrasts with what is said before the blank? Does it provide an example of something mentioned before the blank? Does it elaborate on something mentioned before the blank? These are just a few examples of the types of relationships you should be looking for.

Most (but not all) transitions fall broadly into one of two main buckets: they're generally in agreement with each other (we're counting cause and effect, elaboration, exemplification, paraphrasing, etc.), or they're in disagreement (the text after the blank either contradicts or goes in a different direction than the text before the blank). If the content before and after the blank are more or less in agreement, then you can easily eliminate answer choices that clearly indicate contrast (e.g. "but", "however", "nevertheless", "nonetheless", "on the other hand", etc.). Or, on the other hand, if the content before and after the blank are in disagreement, then you can easily eliminate answer choices that clearly indicate agreement (e.g. "furthermore", "moreover", "in addition", "thus", "accordingly", "in other words", etc.).

After crossing out the answers that are easy to weed out, take a careful look at the remaining, and determine which one most precisely matches the relationship between the text before and after the blank. For example, if the text after the blank follows logically from the text before it, then the answer choice "thus" would make more sense than "furthermore", even though both express some form of agreement between the two parts of the text.

We're working on putting together an extensive list of transition words and phrases that you might encounter, with explanations and examples of how they're used. Check back here soon for that!