A transition question tests how the sentence with the blank connects to the ideas around it. Cover the choices and shrink the linked sentences to a few words each. In a longer discussion, read the next sentence too and ask whose point the writer is making. Then swap in each transition’s plain meaning: does the sentence add support, report a result, or turn against a point? Words that sound natural can still describe a link the text doesn’t make.
Hints
- Hint 1
Shrink the advocates’ claim and the sentence with the blank. What does each say about what letters can reveal?
- Hint 2
Read through Okafor’s decision, looking for the cargo example’s role in the whole paragraph. How does the sentence about rare collections affect that role?
Step-by-step
Read the example in context
Step 1Shrink the two ideas
The advocates say broad tax-ledger categories obscure distinct commercial networks. How does the blank’s sentence connect to that claim? In ports with unusually complete correspondence, letters distinguish tableware voyages from roof-tile voyages, so they supply detail that broad ledger categories can hide. So the example supports the advocates’ point.
- Step 2
Find the writer’s stance
Why read beyond that supporting example? The next sentence says Collections this complete are rare and unevenly distributed. That limits what these successful cases tell us about traffic volume across ports. Okafor uses ledgers for baseline route estimates and letters only to refine cargo classifications when enough survive. The writer isn’t arguing for relying mainly on letters; the example is a strength admitted before the limits are explained.
- Step 3
Test the other meanings
Nevertheless means despite that, but the example supports the advocates rather than pushing against them. Accordingly means as a result, while the letters’ finer details are evidence for the claim, not a result of it. Could In other words, meaning saying the same thing another way, fit? The words in ports with unusually complete correspondence limit this to a narrow example rather than that broad claim restated.
- Step 4
Check the admission
Granted means I admit this is true. Read that meaning into the blank: the writer admits that letters can separate voyages carrying glazed tableware from those carrying roof tiles, without saying letters should be the main source for route estimates. Choice A.