SAT Reading & Writing: Hard Transitions (Drill 29)

Question 1. The first mechanical clocks installed high in medieval town towers were, by any modern measure, badly inaccurate machines, drifting by many minutes across a single day and needing constant correction against the noon sun to mean anything at all; ______ they changed the texture of daily life profoundly, ringing out the hours for work, prayer, and the opening of markets, and gradually teaching whole towns to organize the working day around one shared public signal rather than the loose, uneven rhythm of daylight alone.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• A) for all that, ✓
• B) as a result,
• C) in particular,
• D) beforehand,

Explanation: (A) "For all that" concedes the clocks' inaccuracy and then affirms their deep influence anyway; the blank grants a flaw before crediting the larger achievement that stood despite it. "As a result" would make their influence a consequence of their inaccuracy, which is not the link. "In particular" would narrow to a detail of the inaccuracy, when the sentence pivots to their importance. "Beforehand" would point to an earlier time, while the sentence concedes and then affirms.

Question 2. When electronic calculators became genuinely cheap in the 1970s, many confident observers predicted that the humble abacus would vanish within a single generation, a quaint relic with no real place in a world of batteries and silicon chips. ______ skilled users across several countries still reach for the sliding beads, and well-trained children can rival a calculator on certain kinds of sums, partly because working an abacus by hand builds an intuitive feel for number that tapping a plastic keypad simply does not.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• A) In short,
• B) Even now, ✓
• C) Therefore,
• D) Likewise,

Explanation: (B) "Even now" sets the abacus's stubborn survival against the old prediction of its demise; the blank contrasts what was expected with what persists in the present. "In short" would summarize the prediction, when the sentence overturns it. "Therefore" would make the survival follow from the prediction, when it defies it. "Likewise" would add a parallel, but the sentence contradicts the expectation rather than echoing it.

Question 3. Each time a great river floods a wide valley, it spreads a thin layer of fine silt across the low fields and then slowly withdraws, leaving the soil noticeably richer than it had been before. Farmers along such rivers have for ages planted directly in the wake of the retreating water. ______ the entire cycle turns again the following season: the river swells and rises, the valley floods and then drains, and a fresh coat of fertile mud is laid down for the next round of planting.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• A) Just once,
• B) Even so,
• C) Once more, ✓
• D) In sum,

Explanation: (C) "Once more" marks the flood-and-renewal cycle repeating in the next season, a recurrence of the pattern just described; the blank signals the same sequence coming round again. "Just once" would mark a single occurrence, when the sentence stresses the cycle happening yet again. "Even so" would concede a tension, but the sentence continues a pattern rather than countering it. "In sum" would summarize, when the sentence instead shows the cycle recurring.

Question 4. Some hardy desert plants survive the long drought by storing water in thick, fleshy stems and leaves that they draw on slowly through the rainless months. Arid-country plants, ______ take the opposite approach altogether, staying small, shedding their leaves, or simply waiting out the worst of the dry season as dormant seeds, since hoarding water is both costly and dangerous in a place where a thirsty animal may tear a swollen stem wide open to reach the moisture stored inside it.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• A) by and large, ✓
• B) for instance,
• C) in response,
• D) even then,

Explanation: (A) "By and large" widens from the few water-storing plants to the general pattern across arid plants; the blank moves from a specific exception to the broad rule. "For instance" would make the broad pattern an example of water-storing, but it describes the opposite majority. "In response" would frame the pattern as a reaction to the first plants, which it is not. "Even then" would concede a condition, when the sentence generalizes instead.

Question 5. Restoring the small wooden sailing ship took far longer than anyone involved had first guessed. The cracked hull needed two hundred new oak planks, each cut and steamed and bent carefully to shape; the rigging called for miles of fresh rope laid up by hand; the deck fittings, long since rusted away to nothing, had to be forged one by one to the old patterns. ______ the work stretched to nearly four years and drew on the skills of shipwrights, smiths, and sailmakers who had to relearn half-forgotten trades as they went.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• A) In contrast,
• B) All told, ✓
• C) For example,
• D) Until then,

Explanation: (B) "All told" gathers the separate tasks just listed into a single summed-up total of time and skill; the blank closes an enumeration with its overall reckoning. "In contrast" would oppose the total to the details, when it sums them up. "For example" would offer the total as one instance, yet it gathers all of them. "Until then" would mark a point in time, which the sentence is not tracking.