A transition question with several sentences of reasoning tests how the sentence after the blank relates to the whole discussion. Cover the choices and shrink the ideas around the blank, keeping in mind any earlier claim those ideas respond to. Then ask whether the next sentence adds, follows from, turns against, or places those ideas in time. Name the exact job, and test each transition by its plain meaning. Wrong choices may sound smooth while naming a relationship the text doesn't support.
Hints
- Hint 1
Read the entire sentence before the blank, including the part after the semicolon. Shrink that sentence and the final sentence to a few words each.
- Hint 2
Check what a reprinted playbill can prove. Which date could the later copy preserve, and what does the writer say it can't show?
- Hint 3
Read the final recommendation alongside the records and the possible reprint. How does it use that whole discussion?
Step-by-step
Shrink the reasoning, then test the meaning
Step 1Check the address records
Some historians put the theater's opening in 1892 because of the playbill. What do the records say about its printed address? The company didn't occupy it until 1901, and construction was approved only in 1900. The records point later, so the transition must connect this discussion to the final recommendation.
- Step 2
Separate the two dates
Could 1892 still be the right date for the performance? Yes, because a later reprint could preserve the date of an 1892 performance. But the writer says that possibility would not establish that the theater at the printed address was then open, so the performance date doesn't prove this theater's opening date.
- Step 3
Identify the final sentence's job
What does historians should date the opening do after that discussion? It reaches a conclusion from the evidence. Even so means despite that, but this judgment agrees with the limit on what the playbill proves. In other words means saying the same thing another way, while this sentence recommends a date from the records. For example means giving one case, and the recommendation isn't a case of reprinting.
- Step 4
Test the full meaning
On balance means considering all the evidence. Put that meaning in the blank, and the recommendation about the period after 1900 becomes the writer's judgment after weighing the different clues about the opening. Choice D.