A transition question after several pieces of evidence tests how the final sentence connects to what came before. Cover the choices and shrink the evidence and the final claim, keeping any words that limit what the evidence proves. Then ask whether the final sentence adds something, turns against an earlier point, or draws a conclusion from the whole set. Swap in each transition's plain meaning, because a word that sounds smooth can still describe the wrong link.
Hints
- Hint 1
Look at the limits attached to each clue: the phrase patterns, the payment, and the letter. What does each clue leave uncertain?
- Hint 2
Read the final claim alongside all three clues. Ask what that claim does with both the evidence and the gaps in it.
Step-by-step
From the clues to the final judgment
Step 1Shrink the clues and keep their limits
Cover the choices and shrink the three clues leading into the blank: shared phrases, a payment, and a letter about a finished review. We need to connect these clues to the final claim, so how firmly does each tie Hale to this review? Other contributors used some phrases, the ledger does not identify what work the payment covered, and the letter leaves the review unnamed. Each clue has a limit.
- Step 2
Name what the final sentence does
What does the final sentence do with those limits? It favors the broad claim that Hale helped prepare the issue over the narrow claim that he authored this particular review. The payment and letter support his help with the issue, but their missing details and the shared phrases don't identify him as this review's author. The conclusion follows from the clues and their limits. Its job is to weigh how strongly the clues support each claim.
- Step 3
Test the other meanings
By comparison means set beside another case to show a difference, but the two claims are compared inside the last sentence, not across the blank. In other words repeats a point, but the clues haven't already said which claim the evidence more strongly supports. Even so means despite that, but the conclusion follows the clues' limits.
- Step 4
Read the weighing phrase in place
Read On balance as after weighing everything. That meaning lets the last sentence judge what the evidence more strongly supports, without claiming that any one clue proves who wrote the review. Choice B.