SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Transitions (Drill 27)

Question 1. When a new dam was proposed on the river, the regional power authority stressed the steady electricity and the reliable flood control it would bring to the towns downstream, presenting the project as an unambiguous public gain. The upstream farming families, ______ saw that very same plan mainly as the loss of the fertile bottomland fields their households had worked for generations, soon to vanish for good beneath the rising reservoir. The two sides were describing one dam in almost completely opposite terms.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• A) in turn,
• B) in the meantime,
• C) for their part, ✓
• D) by the same logic,

Explanation: (C) "For their part" shifts to how a second group, the farmers, viewed the same project, setting their perspective beside the authority's; the blank marks a turn to a contrasting point of view. "In turn" would mark a next step in a sequence, but the sentence contrasts two views rather than advancing a chain. "In the meantime" would mark something happening in the interval, when the sentence contrasts two simultaneous views. "By the same logic" would claim the farmers reason alike, yet they reach an opposite verdict.

Question 2. The committee reviewing the old stone bridge found real arguments on both sides of the question. Repairing the original arches would cost far more than a plain modern replacement and would close the only road into the village for a full working season; still, the bridge anchored the town's main street and drew the visitors who came partly just to see it. ______ the members judged that the case for preservation clearly outweighed the savings a replacement promised, and they voted to restore the structure.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• A) On balance, ✓
• B) If anything,
• C) In one case,
• D) Beforehand,

Explanation: (A) "On balance" signals a verdict reached by weighing the competing considerations just laid out; the blank gathers the pros and cons into a final judgment. "If anything" would push past the prior point to intensify it, but the sentence weighs both sides rather than escalating one. "In one case" would single out a particular instance, when a general conclusion is being drawn. "Beforehand" would point to an earlier time, while the decision comes after the deliberation.

Question 3. A cheetah is built for one explosive burst of speed: it can overtake nearly any animal on the open plain, but only across a short chase before the effort becomes unsustainable and the animal must break off and stop to recover. ______ a pronghorn is built for endurance, holding a swift, steady pace mile after mile without ever seeming to tire, so that an animal built to win a short sprint may still lose a long pursuit outright. Speed, in these two animals, means almost opposite things.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• A) For that reason,
• B) In contrast, ✓
• C) In particular,
• D) As it happens,

Explanation: (B) "In contrast" sets the pronghorn's endurance against the cheetah's short burst, two opposed builds placed side by side; the blank marks a clean opposition. "For that reason" would make the pronghorn's endurance a result of the cheetah's limit, but they are independent cases. "In particular" would narrow the cheetah point, when the sentence turns to a different animal. "As it happens" would mark a coincidence, while the sentence draws a deliberate contrast.

Question 4. A coral reef depends on a quiet partnership most divers never stop to notice: the coral animal houses tiny algae within its own tissues, and the algae repay that shelter by feeding it sugars they manufacture directly from sunlight. ______ the lichen spreading over a bare rock is not one organism in the usual sense but a close partnership between a fungus and a photosynthetic partner, an alga or a cyanobacterium, bound so tightly that each supplies what the other cannot. Both the reef and the lichen are partnerships passing as single living things.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• A) If anything,
• B) On the contrary,
• C) In one sense,
• D) In much the same way, ✓

Explanation: (D) "In much the same way" presents the lichen as a second case obeying the same rule as the reef, which the closing sentence states outright; the blank marks a parallel between two like examples. "If anything" would push past the reef point to intensify it, but the sentence turns to a separate parallel case. "On the contrary" would deny the first case, when the second confirms its pattern. "In one sense" would qualify the reef claim partway, while the lichen fully echoes it.

Question 5. The chance discovery of a cheap synthetic dye in the 1850s suddenly made bright purple cloth affordable to almost anyone who happened to want it. ______ purple had been among the most costly colors anywhere in the world, extracted in tiny quantities from the glands of sea snails and reserved by both custom and high expense for royalty and the very richest families. A hue that had signaled high rank for many centuries became, almost overnight, simply one more color on the draper's shelf.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• A) In response,
• B) Predictably,
• C) Until then, ✓
• D) By comparison,

Explanation: (C) "Until then" marks the long state of affairs that held right up to the dye's arrival, before the turning point reversed it; the blank fixes the period before the change. "In response" would make the costly purple a reaction to the dye, reversing the order of events. "Predictably" would stress that the change was expected, which is not the point being made. "By comparison" would weigh two cases on a scale, when the passage tracks a change over time.