A transition question tests how the sentence with the blank relates to what came before it. Cover the choices and sum up the sentences around the blank, keeping what each one claims. With a limit followed by a conclusion, ask exactly what that limit covers. Then name the link between ideas: does the next idea add support, follow as a result, turn against an expectation, or mark time? Wrong transitions can connect the topics while missing what the sentences say.
Hints
- Hint 1
Look at what remains unresolved in the sentence before the blank. Be precise about what that uncertainty concerns.
- Hint 2
Compare the two fault sections. What do the measurements say about how active each section is and whether it releases strain?
- Hint 3
Put the last two claims side by side: what is unresolved, and what is being ruled out? Check each claim against the measurements reported earlier.
Step-by-step
Separate the uncertainty from the conclusion
Step 1Pin down the uncertainty
The sentence before the blank says neither record spans a complete rupture cycle, leaving the link to rupture timing unresolved. What question is still open? It's whether changes in event rate help tell when a rupture will happen. The transition must link that specific uncertainty to the final sentence's claim.
- Step 2
Find what supports the strain claim
What supports the final sentence's claim about stored strain across sections? The section with hundreds of microearthquakes has steady creep that releases much of the accumulated strain. In the nearly silent section, the fault is locked, and trench records show repeated large ruptures. More recorded events don't necessarily mean more stored strain, which supports rejecting counts alone as a direct measure. That comparison concerns differences between sections, so it doesn't depend on knowing when a rupture will occur.
- Step 3
Name the link between ideas
How does that conclusion sit beside the unresolved timing question? The writer can't settle the timing of a rupture from changes in event rate but still draws a conclusion about stored strain. The next sentence turns against what we might expect: the conclusion holds despite the uncertainty. For that reason would make the uncertainty a cause, In other words would restate it, and For example would give a case of it.
- Step 4
Match the transition's meaning
Even so means despite what came before. It lets the writer admit the uncertainty about rupture timing without dropping the separate conclusion about stored strain across sections. Choice A.