SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Transitions (Drill 19)

Question 1. Travelers crossing a vast salt flat high in the Andes often take its pale white crust for a lifeless desert, since almost nothing visibly grows on the cracked, glaring surface that stretches unbroken to the horizon in every direction; ______ the thin sheet of brine pooled just beneath that crust supports dense mats of microbes and feeds the flocks of flamingos that filter tiny organisms from the shallows, so the apparent emptiness conceals a surprisingly active food web hidden just out of sight.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• A) likewise,
• B) in actuality, ✓
• C) therefore,
• D) meanwhile,

Explanation: (B) "In actuality" corrects the surface impression with the truth beneath it: the flat looks dead, but its brine teems with life. The assumption in the first clause is overturned, not extended. (A) "Likewise" claims agreement with the prior idea, but the second clause reverses it rather than echoing it. (C) "Therefore" draws a consequence, yet the hidden food web is not an effect of the flat looking lifeless; it contradicts that appearance. (D) "Meanwhile" sets two scenes side by side in time, while the sentence corrects one claim with another about the very same place.

Question 2. The glassblowers of Murano discovered that the colors in their finest work depended on tiny amounts of metal stirred into the molten batch, and that even a trace of the wrong element could turn a clear gather cloudy or dull the brightest red. The recipes were closely guarded and ruinously easy to spoil, and the furnaces themselves posed a grave fire risk in crowded Venice; ______ the authorities moved glassmaking onto a single lagoon island, where the work could be watched and the secret formulas kept well clear of rival workshops on the mainland.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• A) in any event,
• B) in comparison,
• C) to its credit,
• D) on that account, ✓

Explanation: (D) "On that account" ties the precaution to the conditions that prompted it: because the recipes were fragile and the furnaces dangerous, the work was moved to an island where it could be guarded and contained. The causes lead to the step they forced. (A) "In any event" waves the prior point aside as not decisive, but the secrecy and fire risk are exactly what drive the choice of furnace site, not something to brush past. (B) "In comparison" sets two cases against each other, yet only one situation is described, and the clause states a result, not a contrast. (C) "To its credit" praises a subject for a redeeming quality, while the clause simply reports the precaution the danger forced, not a point in anyone's favor.

Question 3. The mathematician Emmy Noether reshaped how physicists understand conservation laws, showing that they are not a scattered collection of lucky accidents but direct consequences of underlying symmetries in the equations themselves. ______ wherever the laws of a physical system stay the same under some continuous change, a matching quantity is preserved: shift the clock forward and energy holds steady; rotate the apparatus in space and angular momentum holds, each separate pairing following neatly and inevitably from her one underlying theorem about symmetry and the conserved quantities it predicts.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• A) Stated precisely, ✓
• B) In response,
• C) By contrast,
• D) Even at that point,

Explanation: (A) The second sentence does not add or oppose anything; it spells out the broad claim in exact form, pairing each symmetry with its conserved quantity. "Stated precisely" is what signals that narrowing from summary to specifics. (B) "In response" implies the second sentence reacts to the first, but it restates the same idea more exactly rather than answering it. (C) "By contrast" would set up an opposition, yet the precise rule agrees with the general claim, spelling it out instead of opposing it. (D) "Even at that point" concedes that something holds despite a condition, which misreads a clarifying restatement as a reservation.

Question 4. The painter Bridget Riley built her early canvases entirely in black and white, arranging stripes and nested curves so precisely that the flat surface seemed to ripple, shimmer, and pulse before a viewer's eyes. ______ the optical effects were genuinely powerful, dazzling the crowds who stood transfixed before them in the gallery. But Riley always insisted the work was about the act of perception itself, not a clever bag of tricks, and she resented seeing her paintings dismissed as mere illusions.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• A) Instead,
• B) For that reason,
• C) Undeniably, ✓
• D) By the same token,

Explanation: (C) "Undeniably" grants the obvious point -- the effects really were striking -- before the later "But" turns to Riley's deeper claim about perception. The first sentence yields ground so the next one can push past it. (A) "Instead" replaces one idea with another, but the power of the effects is not swapped out; it is granted and then qualified. (B) "For that reason" makes the dazzle an effect of the prior sentence, yet it is a point being conceded, not a consequence being drawn. (D) "By the same token" claims a parallel, while the sentence concedes a point that the following one will partly resist, not match.

Question 5. Before engraving a finished map, an eighteenth-century cartographer first sketched coastlines and rivers in soft pencil, copying carefully from the surveyors' rough field notes. He then inked over only the lines he fully trusted, leaving doubtful stretches deliberately faint or wholly blank. ______ he cut the completed drawing in reverse into a polished copper plate, a slow and exacting step that fixed every choice permanently, since a wrong stroke gouged into metal could never be lifted out the way a pencil line could.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• A) Last of all, ✓
• B) In contrast,
• C) For instance,
• D) Nevertheless,

Explanation: (A) "Last of all" marks the final stage of an ordered process: sketch in pencil, ink the trusted lines, then cut the plate. Its closing step is the most irreversible of the three. (B) "In contrast" implies the engraving opposes the earlier steps, but it completes the same workflow rather than reversing it. (C) "For instance" promises an example, yet the clause names the next and final action, not an illustration of a claim. (D) "Nevertheless" signals that the step happens despite something, while the engraving follows naturally from the drafting that preceded it.