SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Transitions (Drill 17)

Question 1. The codebreakers at Bletchley Park faced a cipher whose machine settings were reset every single day, so any approach that demanded weeks of patient hand calculation was hopeless against it. The bombe, an electromechanical device that searched through possible rotor positions far faster than any person could, narrowed the field in a matter of hours. ______ the design answered the very pressure the cryptanalysts faced: a problem that reset itself each midnight had at last met a tool quick enough to keep pace with it.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• A) By contrast,
• B) In the meantime,
• C) Aptly, ✓
• D) Be that as it may,

Explanation: (C) "Aptly" marks how neatly the tool matched its task: the cipher reset daily, and the machine's speed answered exactly that demand. Problem and solution fit together, and that fit is the point. (A) "By contrast" sets the clauses against each other, but the machine's speed agrees with the codebreakers' need rather than opposing it. (B) "In the meantime" fills an interval of waiting, yet the sentence is judging suitability, not tracking what happened during a delay. (D) "Be that as it may" concedes against a prior point; here nothing is conceded, since the speed is presented as a clean fit, not a drawback.

Question 2. When the self-taught mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan sent pages of formulas to Cambridge, the results arrived with almost no proofs attached, just bold assertions about infinite series, continued fractions, and the ways whole numbers can be split into sums. ______ a great many of the results were correct, as later mathematicians confirmed one by one. But the absence of any derivations troubled his first readers, who could not yet see how he had reached conclusions that seemed to come from nowhere and took years of labor to justify.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• A) On balance,
• B) It is true, ✓
• C) As a consequence,
• D) In particular,

Explanation: (B) "It is true" grants the point before the reversal lands: yes, a great many results were correct, and the later "But" then turns to what still troubled his readers. One fact is conceded so the next sentence can push against it. (A) "On balance" weighs competing considerations to reach a net verdict, but the sentence simply states a fact plainly rather than tallying pros and cons. (C) "As a consequence" makes the second clause an effect of the first, yet the results being correct is not caused by the lack of proofs. (D) "In particular" narrows to a specific case of a broader claim, while this sentence states a plain general fact rather than zooming in on one.

Question 3. Restoring a faded daguerreotype, a conservator first photographs the silver plate under raking light to map exactly where the image has tarnished into a haze. She then tests one small corner with a mild chemical bath, watching whether the corrosion lifts without scouring the fragile picture beneath; ______ she treats the whole surface, working in short passes and rinsing often, so that a century of darkening clears away without erasing the delicate portrait that the tarnish had nearly swallowed and left almost invisible beneath the clouded silver.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• A) in contrast,
• B) for example,
• C) only then, ✓
• D) meanwhile,

Explanation: (C) The steps run in strict order -- map the damage, test a corner, then treat the whole plate -- so the blank must mark the step the earlier ones make possible. "Only then" caps that sequence. (A) "In contrast" implies the last step opposes the earlier ones, but it extends the same careful procedure rather than reversing it. (B) "For example" points ahead to an instance of a general claim, yet the clause reports the next action, not an illustration. (D) "Meanwhile" places two actions at the same time, while the full treatment plainly follows the corner test, depending on its outcome.

Question 4. The astronomer Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar wanted to know what becomes of a star once it has burned through its fuel and can no longer hold itself up against the inward pull of its own gravity. ______ he combined the new quantum rules governing dense matter with Einstein's account of mass and energy, working through the equations during a long sea voyage to England and calculating a limit above which a stellar remnant cannot remain a stable white dwarf but must undergo some form of further collapse instead.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• A) With that goal, ✓
• B) In the end,
• C) In any case,
• D) Even then,

Explanation: (A) "With that goal" names the purpose driving the method: wanting to know a star's fate, he merged two theories to find the critical limit. The blank links an aim to the means chosen to reach it. (B) "In the end" announces a final outcome, but the clause describes the approach he took, not the result he ultimately landed on. (C) "In any case" waves aside what came before as not decisive, yet the calculation directly serves the stated question rather than dismissing it. (D) "Even then" concedes that something holds despite a condition, which misreads a plain statement of method as a reservation.

Question 5. A single bolt of lightning can heat the narrow channel of air it carves to something like thirty thousand kelvin, several times hotter than the visible surface of the Sun itself. That figure sounds almost impossible until it is placed beside the flames of everyday life. ______ a candle or an open wood fire burns at little more than one or two thousand kelvin, a range so far beneath the bolt that the stroke's brief, searing temperature stands clearly in a class of its own.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• A) Conversely,
• B) All the same,
• C) For its part,
• D) Sure enough, ✓

Explanation: (D) "Sure enough" signals that the expected everyday figure confirms the extreme one: candles and wood fires top out near a couple thousand kelvin, so the bolt's thirty thousand really is in a class apart. The familiar number bears out the contrast. (A) "Conversely" promises an opposite, but the cool flames do not reverse the claim about the bolt; they supply the contrast that proves it. (B) "All the same" concedes yet holds a point firm against a counterweight, and no counterweight has been raised -- the baseline supports the prior sentence rather than resisting it. (C) "For its part" hands off to a second subject taking parallel action, yet a candle does not act in parallel with lightning; its temperature is offered as a yardstick.