A transition question with repeated terms tests how the sentences connect, not whether they share a topic. Cover the choices and shrink both sentences to a few words, keeping what each one says. Ask whether the second continues the first idea, follows from it, contrasts with it, or places events in time. Then name how they connect and swap in each choice's plain meaning, because words that point the same way can still claim different links.
Hints
- Hint 1
Shrink the two sentences around the blank to a few words each. The first two sentences give background, but the link you need is at the end of the paragraph.
- Hint 2
Look for the two meanings of accuracy in the sentence before the blank. Put each meaning in your own words.
- Hint 3
In the last sentence, what can calibration strengthen, and what does it leave unproved? Connect those two parts to the two meanings of accuracy.
Step-by-step
Shrink and test the link
Step 1Separate the two meanings of accuracy
The sentence before the blank separates the proxy's average relationship with output from the validity of each local estimate. What changes between those two meanings? One asks how well the measure tracks output on average; the other asks whether we can trust each local estimate. These are different meanings of accuracy, and the transition must connect that difference to the final sentence.
- Step 2
Explain how the sentences connect
What can calibration improve, and what does that improvement leave unproved? It can strengthen the estimated average relationship, but that doesn't prove that brighter lights in a particular place mean economic growth. That matches the earlier difference: improving the average link isn't proof that each local estimate is valid. The final sentence makes the earlier difference more exact, because it explains what calibration can and can't show rather than going against the earlier point.
- Step 3
Set aside the wrong links
Subsequently means afterward, but the last sentence doesn't report a later event. Conversely means the reverse is true; the last sentence explains the difference between the meanings of accuracy instead of reversing it. Similarly means the same is true of a second case, and there's no second case to compare because both sentences are about the same measure.
- Step 4
Read the exact meaning in place
More precisely means to state a point more exactly. Does that meaning work in the blank? The sentence says exactly which kind of accuracy calibration can improve, while without showing limits what we can conclude about a particular place. Choice D.