A transition question tests the link between the sentence with the blank and what came before it. Cover the choices and shrink both sentences, keeping track of when each claim applies. Ask whether the second supports the first, follows from it, turns against it, or places events in time. Then test the transition’s plain meaning to check exactly how it links those claims. Wrong choices can sound smooth while claiming a relationship the text doesn’t show.
Hints
- Hint 1
Read the installation-records sentence and the sentence after the blank. Shrink what each says about why the work was in the corridor.
- Hint 2
Look for the words that place the claims in time. What stage of Ives’s use of the corridor does each sentence describe?
- Hint 3
If the final sentence is true, does the records’ explanation for the first placement still stand? Test whether the two claims can be true together.
Step-by-step
Track the first reason and the later choice
Step 1Shrink the two claims
Installation records give a practical reason for using the corridor: the main gallery floor could not bear the panels’ weight. What happens after the blank? Ives declined to move the work when a reinforced gallery became available, so we’re linking a practical first placement with a later refusal to move.
- Step 2
Separate the original reason from later value
Does that refusal show that the critics were right about the original placement? The records weaken the claim that the setting originated as a symbolic choice, while the last sentence says Ives had come to value the corridor’s artistic effect. The later value doesn't cancel the practical origin, because she could develop an artistic reason to keep a setting she first used out of need. The last sentence adds a contrast: artistic value can matter despite the practical start.
- Step 3
Set aside words that support the earlier point
Which words would support what the records say? Indeed means in truth or even more so, so it would back up the records’ point about why the corridor was initially used. For example means here is one case of that point, but keeping the work later doesn't illustrate its original practical placement. These support the earlier point rather than add a contrast.
- Step 4
Test the two kinds of turn
On the contrary means the opposite is true, which would make the records’ account false. But had come to value describes a later change, so the original account can still stand. That said means despite that, so it allows later artistic value without denying the practical origin. Choice D.