Digital SAT Reading and Writing: Transitions
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
Transition words may be considered by some to be an unnecessary accouterment to a sentence, a garnish rather than a key ingredient to a dish. While it is true that inexperienced writers run the risk of overembellishing their sentences with transition words, it’s important to recognize that transitions have a necessary role—they are like the train tracks that guide a train from one location to another.
Continuing the analogy, imagine a train speeding down a path. Eventually, it approaches a junction where the route splits into two separate paths. Without the proper framework to guide its direction, the train would have a hard time following its intended path. In the same way, prose without transitions can lack structure and direction, leaving readers disoriented and struggling to grasp the author’s intended train of thought. Transitions signal to the reader where the message is going, or how one idea connects to the next.
To illustrate this point, notice how transitions function in the following passage:
The day leading up to the big game, everything seemed to go wrong. At first, Levi chalked it up to unfortunate coincidence, but as the day dragged on, he began to suspect that there was some kind of cosmic conspiracy going against him.
For starters, his phone alarm didn’t go off to wake him, which was rather unusual, considering that he never had a problem with his alarm before. Consequently, he was late to class, not to mention grouchy for the misstep at the very start of his day. Perhaps if he had been in a sunnier disposition, he could have swayed his teacher to let him off with a mere warning, but he was certain his scowl earned him no favors.
It snowballed from there. In addition to forgotten homework assignments and one particularly heinous pop quiz, he even stepped into someone’s spilled (and very pungent) lunch. Nothing seemed to be going as Levi had hoped. Despite this, Levi was determined to believe that the day’s events would not be a precursor to his upcoming soccer game.
Because even with bad luck, it didn’t matter—Levi had talent, and that was all he needed.
Imagine that the transition elements were removed from this story. How would it be different?
Aside from the “flow” of the words, the story would be a lot more challenging to follow. Without the phrase “At first,” we don’t have a sense of when Levi began to notice that his day wasn’t going as he’d hoped. Similarly (see what I did there), removing the transition word “Consequently” makes it difficult to determine that there is a connection between two events, a cause-and-effect relationship. Because Levi’s alarm didn’t go off, he was late for school.
Expression of Ideas
On the digital SAT, Transitions questions are part of the “Expression of Ideas” content domain. This should not come as a surprise. As you should now know, transitions serve as an effective means to connect one idea to another. One of the biggest challenges to handling this type of question is gathering enough context to understand the relationship between the provided sentences. Usually the accompanying passage will only be 2–3 sentences long, so you must read carefully to grasp how these sentences relate to each other.
Transition questions show up towards the end of the module. Juxtaposed to lengthy Rhetorical Synthesis questions, Transitions questions may fool you into thinking that shorter means easier. But don’t let brevity and the mental fatigue of approaching the finish line tempt you into rushing through these questions—overlooking a single phrase can entirely change the meaning of the passage (and cost you a point).
Transition words can convey many different types of relationships. The type that you might be the most familiar with is one that introduces an example or illustrative relationship. When you see phrases like “for example” or “for instance,” you know that the information following the phrase will support a previous point with specific information. In determining the most appropriate transition word to complete a passage, then, you must be able to look at sentences at a higher level to see how ideas fit together.
Common Transition Words on the Digital SAT
Although not an all-inclusive list, the following provides examples of transition words or phrases that are grouped by function:
- Additionally
- Furthermore
- In addition
- Moreover
- Accordingly
- As a result
- Consequently
- For this reason
- Hence
- Therefore
- Thus
- Because
- Emphasizing Likeness
- In the same way
- Likewise
- Similarly
- Emphasizing Contrast
- Alternatively
- Conversely
- However
- In comparison
- In contrast
- On the other hand
- In spite of
- Nevertheless
- Nonetheless
- Notwithstanding
- Still
- Indeed
- In fact
- Notably
- Of course
- For example
- In particular
- Namely
- For instance
- First
- Initially
- Later
- Meanwhile
- Next
- Previously
- Subsequently
- Then
How to Tackle Transitions Questions on the Digital SAT
When tackling a transitions question, start by reading the entire text and mentally paraphrase the content of each sentence. Then, focus your attention on the sentence with the blank and identify what this sentence accomplishes in relation to the other sentences.
Let’s look at an example from College Board’s Nonadaptive Practice Test #1:
In November 1934, Amrita Sher-Gil was living in what must have seemed like the ideal city for a young artist: Paris. She was studying firsthand the color-saturated style of France’s modernist masters and beginning to make a name for herself as a painter. _______ Sher-Gil longed to return to her childhood home of India; only there, she believed, could her art truly flourish.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
A) Still,
B) Therefore,
C) Indeed,
D) Furthermore,
We can paraphrase each sentence of the text accordingly:
First sentence: Amrita lived in Paris as a young artist.
Second sentence: She lived in Paris to study modernist art and build her reputation as an artist.
Third sentence: She wished to move back to India and develop her craft there.
Without a transition word, the third sentence seems like quite a leap. Why would Amrita want to move back to India if the previous two sentences describe Paris as an “ideal” spot to study art? Now we can look at how the third sentence is functioning: it is offering a counterpoint, indicating that Amrita longed to move back to India in spite of all the reasons she might want to continue living in France—that even though Paris is like a central hub for artists, Amrita did not believe her art could truly flourish there. A word of concession like “still” (Choice A) effectively conveys this sense of personal conflict.
With that in mind, we can look at the other choices to determine why they would not be an appropriate fit:
Choice B: Therefore,
Therefore” indicates that Amrita wanted to move back to India because Paris is an ideal city for young artists to study modernism. A word like “therefore” conveys a cause-and-effect relationship, which does not align with the narrative presented in the text.
Choice C: Indeed,
“Indeed” is used to emphasize or confirm a point. A word of emphasis such as “indeed” would suggest that Amrita’s desire to return to India confirms the idea that she is making a name for herself as an artist in Paris, which doesn’t align with the predicament presented in the passage.
Choice D: Furthermore,
“Furthermore” functions to continue a train of thought by presenting another point to support a previous statement. Using a transition word like “furthermore” would suggest that Amrita’s desire to return to India is an additional point that supports the previous information about her life in Paris. However, this does not convey the contrast between the positive aspects of her Parisian life and her longing to return to India.
Choice A is the best answer.
Sometimes it can be difficult to determine the best transition word given the limited text (we are only given 2–3 sentences to work with, after all), so another strategy that can help is to look for clue words that provide more clarity about the context.
The following text is another example from College Board’s Nonadaptive Practice Test #1:
Researchers Helena Mihaljević-Brandt, Lucía Santamaría, and Marco Tullney report that while mathematicians may have traditionally worked alone, evidence points to a shift in the opposite direction. _______ mathematicians are choosing to collaborate with their peers—a trend illustrated by a rise in the number of mathematics publications credited to multiple authors.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
A) Similarly,
B) For this reason,
C) Furthermore,
D) Increasingly,
If you don’t read carefully, it might be easy to miss how the second sentence relates to the first. But if we paraphrase each sentence and look for clue words, it should become much easier to suss out the correct transition word.
The first sentence says that although mathematicians have historically worked on their own, this is beginning to change. The second sentence then says that mathematicians are “choosing” to work with others, which is illustrated by the increase in the number of math publications written by more than one person. Clue words such as “trend” and “rise” both suggest that this is becoming a more common practice, making “increasingly” (Choice D) a logical choice.
Let’s break down the other choices to see how different transition words would shift the meaning of the text:
Choice A: Similarly,
A word like “similarly” would not work well as a transition word in this passage because it suggests a likeness between two ideas, while the context provided in the passage focuses on a shift in behavior over time. If the second sentence of the passage described a similar phenomenon of professionals in a different field shifting from working solo to working collaboratively, then a word like “similarly” would be an appropriate transition word.
Choice B: For this reason,
The phrase “for this reason” suggests a cause-and-effect relationship, as if to say that mathematicians are choosing to work together more because there is a shift away from working alone. However, the second sentence does not offer an explanation as to why collaborative work has become more common. Instead, the second sentence offers more clarity about the “shift” that is taking place in the mathematics profession.
Choice C: Furthermore,
“Furthermore” is a choice that may be a little more difficult to rule out, because it can be used to signal the continuation of a previous point. But in reading the passage, we can determine that the second sentence is clarifying what is meant by the previous statement, “evidence points to a shift in the opposite direction.” In context, “furthermore” would signal another thing that researchers Helena Mihaljević-Brandt, Lucía Santamaría, and Marco Tullney report. A fitting use of “furthermore” might look something like the following:
Researchers Helena Mihaljević-Brandt, Lucía Santamaría, and Marco Tullney report that while mathematicians may have traditionally worked alone, evidence points to a shift in the opposite direction. Furthermore, they argue that collaborative efforts in the field are driven by the recognition of the benefits derived from interdisciplinary collaboration and the complexities of modern mathematical problems.
Notice how “furthermore” functions to introduce another point related to the researchers’ observations.
Choice D: Increasingly,
Going back to the original passage, the primary focus is on a shift in the behavior of mathematicians, moving from working alone to choosing collaboration. The correct answer, “increasingly,” is the best choice because it emphasizes the trend or change over time. On the other hand, “furthermore” might suggest that the upcoming information is another point related to the previous statement, rather than highlighting the shift presented in the text.
Choice D is the best answer.
Before California’s 1911 election to approve a proposition granting women the right to vote, activists across the state sold tea to promote the cause of suffrage. In San Francisco, the Woman’s Suffrage Party sold Equality Tea at local fairs. _______ in Los Angeles, activist Nancy Tuttle Craig, who ran one of California’s largest grocery store firms, distributed Votes for Women Tea.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?
A) For example,
B) To conclude,
C) Similarly,
D) In other words,
The bottom line is, it’s important to read carefully. Overlooking a single sentence or phrase could lead to a misinterpretation of the text. Let’s look at one more example from College Board’s Nonadaptive Practice Test #1 to illustrate why close reading matters:
We have three sentences in this passage. In sentence one, the text says that activists in California sold tea to promote women’s suffrage (the right to vote). The second sentence says that the Women’s Suffrage Party sold tea at local fairs in San Francisco. Then the third sentence says that one activist distributed tea in grocery stores across Los Angeles.
If you happened to gloss over the second sentence, you may be tempted to pick “for example” (Choice A) as the correct answer. However, this would cost you a point on the test—the correct answer is actually “similarly” (Choice C). Even though the third sentence is an example to support the idea that California activists sold tea to promote the suffrage movement, notice how the second sentence already provides an example to illustrate the point. It would not make sense to say “for example” when one was already given. Instead, the third sentence offers a similar example to illustrate how activists support the suffrage movement in California.
Choice C is the best answer.
Closing Thoughts on Digital SAT Transitions Questions
Many students feel that transitions questions can be quite tricky, or even one of the hardest types of questions they’ll face on the digital SAT. But perhaps we can amend this stance and recognize that just like with any other type of test question, there are strategies to guide your approach. It’s not like blindly throwing a dart at a dartboard and hoping it hits the mark by mere chance—your odds of selecting the correct answer are much higher when you take the time to follow the outlined steps in this post. By following three simple tips—(1) paraphrasing, (2) identifying the relationships between sentences, and (3) locating clue words—it becomes much easier to lay down the “tracks” for a coherent passage.
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Amanda Eakin
Amanda is a member of the content team at Test Innovators and specializes in creating reading and writing content for our practice tests. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Education, Integrated Language Arts (grades 7-12), and Creative Writing. Before joining Test Innovators, Amanda was an English teacher for several years before transitioning to a learning and development role at a Fortune 500 company. She has come full circle by returning to the education world and is thrilled to help Test Innovators produce high-quality educational content.
