A transition question with phrase choices tests how the ideas around a blank connect. Cover the choices and shrink the sentences around the blank to their main points. If the final sentence draws on several earlier findings, read back to include each one it uses. Then name the link: does the next point add, follow from, go against, or come after the earlier one? A phrase must also describe correctly whatever it points back to.
Hints
- Hint 1
Read the sentence after the blank as a whole. Ask what conclusion it draws about the two studies.
- Hint 2
Compare the role of recent movers in each study. What does the passage say about that group in the replication and in Ortega’s sample?
- Hint 3
Ask whether the sample detail gives a reason for the final conclusion or works against it.
Step-by-step
Shrink the results and trace the reference
Step 1Separate the overall and group results
Ortega found that reminder postcards increased response rates, but the replication found no overall increase. What else did the replication find? It found an increase among residents who had recently moved. Cover the choices and shrink these results, since the blank must link them to the final conclusion: an overall benefit first, then a benefit for recent movers with no overall increase.
- Step 2
Use the makeup of the first sample
Why does the passage next describe Ortega’s sample? disproportionately composed of recent movers means recent movers made up an unusually large share of it. The first study included unusually many people from the group that benefited in the replication. That gives us a way to explain the different overall results without assuming the studies conflict: the studies can fit together if the postcards’ benefit depends on who receives them.
- Step 3
Name the link
What relationship links that sample detail to the final claim, which identifies a condition under which the postcards may be effective? The detail helps explain why the studies can fit together, so it supports the conclusion about the studies. Despite that sampling difference makes the conclusion hold in spite of the difference. To illustrate the original finding promises an example, while In addition adds a separate point.
- Step 4
Check the phrase’s meaning
Seen in light of that sampling difference means considered with the difference between the samples in mind. The phrase uses the sampling difference to explain the results, leading into the claim that the replication does not simply contradict the first study. Choice A.