Transitions questions: decide the relationship before you read the choices

Every Reading and Writing module has a handful of questions with a blank at the start of a sentence and four choices like however, for example, therefore, similarly. The instruction is always the same: which choice completes the text with the most logical transition.

They are short, they look easy, and in my timing logs they are the most frequently wrong question on the Reading and Writing side for students scoring in the 600s, more often wrong than the long inference questions students worry about. The natural way to answer them is to read the four words and try each in the blank, and that is backward.

Read the two sentences, then decide

The blank sits between two ideas: the sentence before it and the sentence it starts. The question is asking what the second one does to the first. Decide that first, in your own words, before you look at the choices. There are only five answers:

• It adds to it. Same direction, more of the same. Moreover, furthermore, in addition, also.
• It contradicts or qualifies it. However, nevertheless, by contrast, still, on the other hand.
• It follows from it. The first sentence is the cause, the second the result. Therefore, consequently, thus, as a result, hence.
• It illustrates it. The first sentence makes a claim, the second gives a case of it. For example, for instance, specifically.
• It comes after it in time or sequence. Then, next, subsequently, finally, meanwhile.

Say which one it is. Then look at the choices, and usually only one belongs to the family you named.

The pairs that catch people

The wrong answers on these questions are not random. They are chosen from the neighboring family, so that a student who has not decided the relationship can be pulled either way. The ones to know:

Similarly versus moreover. Similarly needs two things that parallel each other: two experiments, two species, two poets doing the same thing. Moreover just adds another point about the same thing. If the second sentence is not about a second, comparable thing, similarly is wrong even though it feels gentle and safe.

For example versus in other words. Both follow a claim. For example introduces a specific instance of it. In other words restates the same claim differently. If the second sentence says the same thing in new language, it is a restatement, not an example.

However versus instead. Both contrast. Instead means the second thing replaced the first. It happened in the first thing’s place. However just means the second thing cuts against the first. Instead after a sentence that was not about something failing to happen is wrong.

Therefore versus for example. A surprising number of misses. If the second sentence is a consequence of the first, it is therefore. If it is an instance of the first, it is for example. Ask whether the first sentence caused the second or merely contains it.

Meanwhile. It means at the same time, and the SAT uses it only when two things are happening in parallel. Students reach for it as a mild contrast word. It is not one.

What is not on the list

There is no DELETE the underlined portion on the digital SAT, and no option to leave the blank empty. One of the four transitions is always right. If none seems to fit, you have misread the relationship. Go back to the two sentences, not to the choices.

In conclusion and finally are almost never right in a passage this short, because nothing is being concluded. When they appear they are usually the obvious wrong answer.

The timing

Done choices-first, a transitions question takes forty to sixty seconds and ends in a coin-flip between two words that both sound plausible. Done relationship-first it takes fifteen to twenty and there is no coin-flip, because you have already said what the sentence does before the choices could suggest anything.

There are enough of these per module that the difference is a full minute, and a full minute at the end of a module is the difference between reading the last passage and guessing it.

Practice the decision, not the words

Memorizing which words are in which family helps, but the skill is the decision. The Question Bank on College Board’s site filters by Transitions; do twenty with your hand over the choices, writing the relationship in one word before you uncover them. The words take care of themselves once the decision is made first.