A transition question with a long final sentence tests how that sentence connects to the one before it. Cover the choices and shrink both sentences to what each says, reading all the way to the end. Ask whether the second adds to the first, follows from it, contrasts with it, or places events in time. Then test the link by swapping in each transition's plain meaning. A smooth reading isn't enough if that meaning changes the link.
Hints
- Hint 1
Read the sentence about the government's ability to raise revenue and the whole sentence after the blank. Shrink each to its main point.
- Hint 2
Look back at the first two sentences for how much agreement Congress needed and received.
- Hint 3
What does the last sentence say a focus on formal failure can obscure? How does that point relate to the claim about limited revenue power?
Step-by-step
Shrink the claims and test the link
Step 1Shrink the two main points
The defeats show a serious limit on the Confederation government's ability to raise revenue, which we can shrink to weak revenue power. What does the whole sentence after the blank add? It says support for expanding national fiscal power had become widespread. For this transition, we're linking weak government power with broad support for expanding it.
- Step 2
Find what the warning challenges
Does broad support make the revenue limit untrue? No: although substantial majorities of states assented, each proposal fell short of unanimity. All states had to agree, so Congress didn't gain that power. The last sentence challenges treating failure as the full significance of the votes, not the fact of failure. The direction is a turn: the defeats mattered, but they weren't the whole story.
- Step 3
Test the other meanings
Which meanings fail that link? More specifically means to give more detail about the previous claim, but a separate conclusion about support doesn't explain the revenue limit in more detail. On the contrary means the previous claim is wrong, yet the revenue limit still stands. For this reason means because of that, but evidence of weak revenue power doesn't itself lead to the warning about overlooking broad support.
- Step 4
Read the turn in place
Nevertheless means despite that, so it introduces a warning that focusing on failure can obscure a separate conclusion even though the defeats show a revenue limit. The word leaves the earlier claim true while turning to what focusing only on failure misses. Choice B.