SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Transitions (Drill 14)

Question 1. The choreographer Alvin Ailey built his 1960 work Revelations from the spirituals, gospel songs, and blues he had absorbed growing up in rural Texas, turning the private memories of a particular childhood into a shared public stage language. The piece has been performed almost continuously since its premiere, a fixture of his company's repertory for generations of dancers. ______ it has traveled the world with the company, becoming for countless audiences abroad their very first encounter with modern American dance and the traditions that shaped it.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• A) What is more, ✓
• B) Then again,
• C) In other words,
• D) Until then,

Explanation: (A) "What is more" adds a second, larger measure of the work's reach -- worldwide touring -- on top of its long performance run. The blank intensifies the point rather than turning or restating it. "Then again" sets up a reconsidering reversal, but the global reach extends the prior claim rather than countering it. "In other words" promises a restatement, yet the worldwide touring is a new fact, not a rewording. "Until then" marks a time boundary, but no earlier-versus-later shift is in play; the sentence simply adds.

Question 2. The deep blue of a glacier is commonly attributed to the sky reflecting off its smooth surface, an explanation that sounds reasonable to anyone who has seen one on a clear day. The color, ______, has almost nothing to do with reflection at all. Dense glacial ice absorbs the longer, red wavelengths of sunlight and lets the shorter blue ones travel deep into the mass and scatter back out, so the striking blue rises from within the ice itself rather than from the sky above.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• A) for instance,
• B) by the same token,
• C) in truth, ✓
• D) for that reason,

Explanation: (C) "in truth" replaces the assumed cause -- reflected sky -- with the real one: selective absorption inside the ice. The interrupting blank corrects the explanation mid-sentence. "for instance" offers an example, but the sentence overturns the reflection idea rather than illustrating it. "by the same token" claims a parallel, yet the two explanations conflict. "for that reason" draws a consequence, but the blank corrects a cause instead of deriving an effect from it.

Question 3. A single connected colony of the fungus Armillaria in an eastern Oregon forest spreads underground across an area larger than many small towns, making it one of the largest living organisms ever measured by scientists. The claim grows easier to accept once the ordinary scale of fungi is kept firmly in view. ______ most of the mushrooms a hiker happens to notice occupy no more than a single fallen log or damp patch of soil, so the sheer reach of this buried network is exactly what sets the colony so far apart.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• A) Nevertheless,
• B) Conversely,
• C) Meanwhile,
• D) Tellingly, ✓

Explanation: (D) "Tellingly" frames the ordinary visible scale -- most mushrooms a hiker notices occupying only a log or small patch -- as the detail that confirms how exceptional the colony is. The blank presents support, not a counterpoint. "Nevertheless" would make the small-fungus figure work against the claim, when it actually backs it up. "Conversely" promises an opposite, but the typical small size points the same way as the claim: it is what makes the colony's reach remarkable. "Meanwhile" marks a parallel event in time, yet the baseline is offered as evidence for the claim, not as something happening alongside it.

Question 4. The botanist Agnes Chase wanted the grasses she gathered on her long South American expeditions to remain genuinely useful to scientists for generations, not merely to fill the pages of her own field notebooks and then gather dust. She understood that a specimen stripped of precise data was nearly worthless to any later researcher trying to retrace her steps. ______ she labeled every pressing with its exact locality, soil, and elevation, then deposited the finished collections in public herbaria where any qualified worker could consult them freely.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• A) Then again,
• B) With that aim, ✓
• C) For its part,
• D) That is,

Explanation: (B) "With that aim" links Chase's goal -- specimens useful for generations -- to the means she chose: meticulous labeling and public deposit. The blank delivers the method serving the stated purpose. "Then again" signals a reconsidering reversal, but her careful practice advances the goal rather than calling it into question. "For its part" shifts attention to a separate actor, yet the labeling is simply the means serving her stated aim. "That is" promises a restatement, but the labeling is a new action, not a rewording of the goal.

Question 5. Reading the early drafts of her novels beside the published versions reveals just how much the writer Toni Morrison was willing to cut from a finished page. She trimmed away explanation that an attentive reader could readily supply unaided, trusting silence and implication to do work that flat statement would only deaden. ______ a draft passage that once described a character's feeling directly might survive into print in a far more compressed form, the full weight of it left for the reader to feel rather than be plainly told.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• A) To be specific, ✓
• B) On the contrary,
• C) Meanwhile,
• D) In effect,

Explanation: (A) "To be specific" pins the general claim -- she cut explanation she trusted readers to supply -- to a representative instance: a direct draft passage surviving in compressed form. The blank moves from summary to a precise case. "On the contrary" reverses a claim, but the example confirms the prior sentence rather than denying it. "Meanwhile" marks a parallel event in time, yet the sentence specifies the prior point instead of reporting something simultaneous. "In effect" signals a summarizing consequence, when the sentence is illustrating the claim with a precise case, not deriving an effect from it.