A transition question tests how the ideas on either side of a blank connect. When both sentences discuss what an event means, focus on their claims, not only on what happened. Cover the choices and shrink both sentences to keep those claims. Then name the link and what it does: does the second show the same pattern, follow from the first, or turn against it? A word that sounds smooth can still claim a link the text doesn't support.
Hints
- Hint 1
Start with Sen's finding and the sentence after the blank. Shrink each to what happens to the embassy and what happens to relations.
- Hint 2
How much does each embassy decision tell you about the states' relations? Compare what each sentence says you can conclude.
Step-by-step
Link the two claims about relations
Step 1Shrink the reopening claim
Sen found that rivals reopen embassies mainly to create reliable channels for managing crises. Does that prove their relations improved? They can reopen even while sanctions and military tensions persist, so the embassy helps manage crises without always ending tensions. To link this finding to the next sentence, let's shrink it to reopening doesn't prove relations improved.
- Step 2
Shrink the closure claim
The final sentence says an embassy's closure does not always demonstrate worsening relations. Why not? The colon gives the reason: some governments preserve substantial cooperation through unofficial envoys, so they can keep working together without an open embassy. We can shrink this to closure doesn't prove relations worsened.
- Step 3
Find the shared warning
Are these opposite claims because one embassy opens and another closes? Reopening can happen with sanctions and military tensions still in place, while closure does not always demonstrate worsening relations, so both warn that embassy decisions aren't reliable proof of changed relations. The claims point the same way, and they compare two cases. By contrast sets cases side by side to show a difference, but these claims agree. Therefore means as a result of that, but the reopening finding doesn't cause or prove the closure claim.
- Step 4
Test the remaining meanings
For example means here is one case of the previous claim. Does an embassy's closure give an example of rivals reopening embassies while tensions persist? It doesn't, because closing is a separate case rather than an example of reopening. Similarly means in the same way, which links the warning about closure to the warning about reopening. Choice B.