Drill 2 · Reading & Writing · Hard Transitions
SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Transitions (Drill 2) is a Reading & Writing practice drill covering Hard Transitions. It contains 5 original questions created by Brian Stewart, a Barron's test prep author with over 20 years of tutoring experience.
Hard SAT Transitions questions ask you to choose the word or phrase that captures the exact logical relationship between ideas. The answer is rarely the most familiar connector; difficulty comes from three distractors that each fit a different, plausible relationship, with only one matching what the passage actually does.
Question 1. Early studies of animal navigation tended to credit a single dominant cue, such as the position of the sun, the pattern of polarized light at dusk, or the pull of Earth's magnetic field, with guiding a species home across great distances. The biologist Rachel Muheim has argued that migratory songbirds instead integrate several of these cues at once, calibrating one against another and weighing celestial and magnetic information together as conditions change; ______ some earlier models treated the magnetic compass as the primary reference that governed orientation.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
Explanation: (D) The passage sets Muheim's multi-cue view against earlier models that gave the magnetic compass primary importance. Because the second clause states a position that opposes the first, "by contrast" is the transition that marks the difference between the two approaches. Choice (A), "similarly," would claim the two models agree, but the earlier compass-first model is the opposite of Muheim's multi-cue account, so there is no similarity to mark. Choice (B), "for this reason," claims the earlier model follows as a consequence of Muheim's view. The older model predates and conflicts with her position; it is not caused by it. Choice (C), "in fact," would signal that the second clause confirms or sharpens the first. Instead it introduces a competing model, which weakens rather than reinforces Muheim's claim.
Question 2. The composer Florence Price drew on the musical vocabulary of the African American communities she grew up among in the segregated South, weaving their idioms into the formal structures of the European symphony at a time when few orchestras would program a Black woman's work. ______ she built whole movements around the syncopated rhythms of the juba dance and the bent, sliding melodic turns of spirituals, setting these traditions inside the four-movement symphonic form that composers like Brahms had inherited and refined.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
Explanation: (C) The first sentence makes a broad claim, that Price wove community idioms into symphonic form, and the second names exactly which idioms and where they appear. "Specifically" fits because the second sentence narrows the general claim into concrete detail rather than adding a new point. Choice (A), "Nevertheless," signals opposition. The second sentence develops the first rather than working against it, so there is no contrast to mark. Choice (B), "For this reason," signals a cause-and-effect link. The detailed description of juba rhythms and spirituals is not an effect produced by the opening claim; it is the same claim spelled out more precisely. Choice (D), "As a result," also claims a consequence. The concrete detail does not follow from the opening claim as an outcome; it restates that claim in sharper focus.
Question 3. The deep-sea anglerfish lives in the lightless midwater zone where almost no sunlight reaches, and for a predator in such darkness, attracting prey toward the mouth is a far greater challenge than chasing it down. ______ in many deep-sea anglerfish species the female has evolved a luminous lure that dangles on a fleshy stalk before her jaws, a glowing beacon whose light depends on colonies of symbiotic bacteria. In the lightless deep, that small flickering spark is often enough to draw curious prey within reach of her teeth.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
Explanation: (A) The first sentence claims that attracting prey matters more than chasing it in the deep, and the second supplies the anglerfish's glowing lure as evidence that confirms the point. "Indeed" fits because the second sentence strengthens and bears out the claim that precedes it. Choice (B), "However," signals a reversal, but the lure does not contradict the claim about attracting prey; it is the very adaptation the claim predicts. Choice (C), "In contrast," would set the lure against the opening idea. The lure illustrates that idea rather than opposing it, so no contrast exists. Choice (D), "Otherwise," means "if that were not the case," introducing an alternative outcome. The second sentence is not an alternative scenario; it is confirming evidence, so "otherwise" does not fit.
Question 4. When the architect Maya Lin designs a memorial, she wants visitors not merely to stand and look at a monument from a distance but to move through a space that gradually reshapes how they remember a difficult event. ______ in the Vietnam Veterans Memorial she set long walls of polished black granite below ground level, so that those who enter descend slowly along the carved names of the dead before the walls recede and the path rises again toward the open landscape, tracing a passage from loss back to the living world.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
Explanation: (D) The first sentence states Lin's goal, to make visitors move through a reshaping space, and the second describes the design she built to achieve it. "To that end" marks an action taken deliberately in service of a stated purpose. Choice (A), "Nonetheless," signals that the design happens despite the goal. The memorial carries out the goal rather than running against it, so there is nothing to concede. Choice (B), "As a result," is the closest trap, since the design could look like an outcome. But the sunken walls are not something that happened to Lin because of her goal; they are the means she chose to reach it, which "to that end" captures and a cause-and-effect transition does not. Choice (C), "In short," introduces a summary of the preceding point. The second sentence does not restate the goal more briefly; it describes the concrete design that serves it, so a summary transition does not fit.
Question 5. By every conventional measure, the rookie pitcher should have struggled in his first professional season: he threw considerably more slowly than most of his peers, his repertoire of pitches was unusually narrow, and scouts had warned that hitters at this level would punish such unexceptional pitches. ______ he finished the year with one of the lowest earned-run averages in the entire league, baffling batters who somehow could not seem to time even his most ordinary deliveries until it was too late.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
Explanation: (B) The first sentence builds the expectation that the pitcher should have struggled, and the second reports that he excelled instead. "Nevertheless" fits because the outcome runs counter to what the setup leads a reader to expect. Choice (A), "Accordingly," can mislead: it signals a result that follows from the setup. But success is the opposite of what his slow pitching predicts, so the outcome contradicts the expectation rather than following from it. Choice (C), "Likewise," signals similarity. The strong season is not a parallel to the weaknesses described; it cuts against them, so no similarity holds. Choice (D), "In short," would announce a summary of the preceding point. The second sentence does not restate the setup more briefly; it delivers a surprising turn, so a summary transition misreads it.