A transition question about competing definitions tests how the final sentence relates to the argument before it. Cover the choices and shrink the ideas on both sides of the blank, keeping track of who claims what. Then identify how the ideas connect: does the second add to the first, result from it, push against it, or place it in time? Transitions link whole claims, not a reason buried inside one sentence.
Hints
- Hint 1
Read the sentence before the blank and the full sentence containing it. Shrink what each says about whether the scene qualifies.
- Hint 2
Look for what each definition uses to classify the scene. What do “one feature” and “another feature” refer to in the final sentence?
- Hint 3
Compare the critics’ conclusion with the final sentence’s claim. How does the final sentence respond to their conclusion?
Step-by-step
Shrink the claims and test the link
Step 1Find the critics’ conclusion
Start with some critics regard the exclusion as decisive, the claim the transition must connect to the final sentence. Why do they give that definition the final word? They think the effect-centered definition best captures readers’ experience, so it should decide whether the scene qualifies. Shrink their claim to this definition settles whether the scene qualifies.
- Step 2
Separate usefulness from classification
Does the final sentence give that definition the final word? It says explanatory value for one feature of a text need not determine classification by another feature, then says the scene qualifies under a plot-centered definition. The two features are the reader’s uncertainty and the protagonist’s discovery, so explaining one well doesn't have to settle a label based on the other. The sentence makes a turn: it accepts the definition’s value but challenges the critics’ conclusion.
- Step 3
Test the other meanings
Which choices miss the challenge to the critics’ conclusion? In other words means to say the same thing differently, but the final sentence limits the critics’ claim instead of restating it. Moreover means to add another supporting point, but this sentence pushes against their conclusion. Consequently means as a result, but exclusion under the effect-centered definition doesn't make the scene qualify under the plot-centered definition.
- Step 4
Check the concession
Nevertheless means despite that, which lets the writer accept a point without accepting the conclusion drawn from it. The claim that the scene still qualifies as a recognition scene can be true even if we accept the effect-centered definition’s value for readers. Choice C.