SHSAT English Language Arts Quiz: Transition Words And Phrases

(1) Ancient Egyptian farmers depended almost entirely on the Nile River's yearly flood to grow their wheat and barley. (2) Each summer, swollen by distant rains, the river rose over its banks and spread across the narrow valley. (3) When the water drew back in the autumn, it left the fields covered with a thick layer of dark, fertile mud, ready for the new season's planting. (4) The Egyptians called their country Kemet, a name meaning the black land. (5) The dry desert that stretched beyond the valley, where nothing grew without water, was known by a different name: the red land.

To show how sentence 4 relates to sentence 3, which transition should the writer use?

(1) Tardigrades, tiny eight-legged animals less than a millimeter long, are famous for surviving conditions that kill nearly every other creature. (2) In laboratory tests, they have endured temperatures close to absolute zero, far colder than anywhere on Earth's surface, for days at a time. (3) They have survived being heated to more than 140 degrees Celsius for several minutes. (4) Scientists trace both feats to the same trick: the animals dry out, curl into a tight ball, and shut down almost all activity. (5) When water returns, sometimes years later, they swell back to their normal shape and resume feeding and moving.

Which transition should be added to the beginning of sentence 3?

(1) During the 1930s, enormous dust storms swept again and again across the southern Great Plains, stripping away topsoil, burying fences and darkening skies as far away as the cities of the East Coast. (2) Historians trace this disaster, known as the Dust Bowl, to two causes. (3) A severe drought had baked the region's soil dry for several years in a row. (4) Farmers had plowed up millions of acres of deep-rooted native grasses that once held that soil in place. (5) Together, these forces left the land with neither the moisture nor the roots it needed to resist the wind.

Which word or phrase most logically begins sentence 4?

(1) In the early 1800s, each American town set its clocks by the position of the sun, so noon in one town arrived a few minutes before or after noon in the next. (2) These small differences caused few problems when travel between towns took days. (3) Railroads, however, carried passengers between towns in hours, and dozens of conflicting local times made train schedules confusing and even dangerous. (4) Railroad companies divided the country into a handful of standard time zones in 1883. (5) Within each zone, every station and, before long, nearly every town kept the same time, no matter where the sun stood.

Which transition should be added to the beginning of sentence 4?

(1) Three years ago, the city added bus-only lanes on its busiest downtown streets in hopes of reducing traffic. (2) Critics, including several downtown store owners, warned that the lanes would simply squeeze cars into less space and make congestion worse. (3) A study released this spring by the city's transportation office compared traffic counts from before and after the change to see what actually happened. (4) Bus ridership on the affected routes rose by nearly a third, with the largest gains during rush hour. (5) The number of private cars entering downtown during the morning rush fell by about a fifth.

The writer wants to add a transition at the start of sentence 5. Which choice best fits the paragraph?

(1) Mount Everest, which rises about 8,800 meters above sea level, is usually called the tallest mountain on Earth. (2) By comparison, the volcano Mauna Kea in Hawaii reaches only about 4,200 meters above the surface of the Pacific Ocean. (3) Most of the volcano lies hidden underwater, and measured from its base on the sea floor, it stands more than 10,000 meters tall. (4) By that measure, Mauna Kea is taller than Everest by more than a kilometer. (5) Which mountain counts as the tallest, then, depends entirely on whether the measuring begins at sea level or at the base of the mountain itself.

Which choice is the best transition to begin sentence 3?

(1) In ancient Rome, noble families kept wax masks of their ancestors in the entrance halls of their homes. (2) Every visitor who passed through the hall, whether a friend, a client, or a political rival, was reminded of the family's long record of service to the state. (3) Many noble families in Renaissance Europe hung painted portraits of earlier generations along the walls of galleries where guests were entertained. (4) In both settings, images of the dead served the living by announcing a family's importance to anyone who entered. (5) The objects changed over the centuries, from wax to oil paint, but their purpose stayed remarkably constant.

Which transition best links sentence 3 with sentence 2?

(1) Eggs and tadpoles are eaten by fish, insects, and birds, so frogs need some way to make sure that at least a few young survive. (2) Most frog species lay hundreds or even thousands of eggs at once and then leave them behind. (3) Only a tiny fraction of the tadpoles that hatch live long enough to become adults, but the sheer number of eggs makes up for these losses. (4) The strawberry poison frog of Central America lays its eggs on damp leaves on the forest floor. (5) It lays just a few eggs at a time, and the mother later carries each tadpole to its own small pool of water and returns every few days to feed it.

Which transition most logically connects sentence 4 to the sentences before it?

(1) The framers of the United States Constitution, who met in Philadelphia in 1787, worried that any single branch of government could grow too powerful. (2) They gave Congress the power to pass national laws, but they allowed the president to veto those laws. (3) The president can appoint federal judges and other high officials, but only with the approval of the Senate. (4) The federal courts, in turn, can strike down laws passed by Congress that conflict with the Constitution. (5) Each branch holds tools that let it limit the other two, so no single branch can act entirely on its own.

Sentence 5 needs a transition. Which choice best introduces it?

(1) Many people today picture the Middle Ages as a dirty, smelly era in which almost no one bathed. (2) Surviving records from medieval European towns tell a very different story. (3) Paris alone had more than two dozen public bathhouses by the late 1200s, and town rules set their opening hours and prices. (4) Several cities also required bath keepers to heat the water fully before announcing to the street, often by blowing a horn, that the baths were open. (5) The image of the unwashed medieval townsperson, it turns out, owes more to later writers than to the evidence.

In context, which transition most effectively introduces sentence 3?

(1) Many city planners argue that green roofs, which are covered with soil and living plants, are worth installing on new buildings. (2) The plants soak up rainwater that would otherwise flood storm drains, and they keep the rooms beneath them cooler in summer. (3) A green roof can cost twice as much to install as a conventional roof. (4) Over its lifetime, though, it saves enough on energy and repairs to make up much of that difference. (5) Supporters therefore see the higher price, which falls further as more builders adopt the design, as an investment rather than a waste.

Which transition, added to the beginning of sentence 3, makes the paragraph's reasoning clearest?

(1) Bridges must be designed to withstand more than just the weight of the traffic they carry. (2) Wind can push and twist a bridge with a force as dangerous as any heavy load. (3) In 1940, a newly opened suspension bridge in Washington State began twisting violently in a steady wind and soon collapsed into the water below. (4) Engineers who studied the failure found that the bridge's thin, solid deck had caught the wind much like a sail. (5) Since then, designers have given bridge decks open frameworks or streamlined shapes that let wind slip past instead of pushing against a flat surface.

Which word or phrase should begin sentence 2?

(1) Ecologists describe the sea otter, a furry marine mammal of the North Pacific coast, as a keystone species. (2) Its influence on the ecosystem around it is far greater than its numbers alone suggest. (3) For instance, when otters vanish from a stretch of coast, the spiny sea urchins they normally eat multiply rapidly and spread across the rocky bottom. (4) The hungry urchins then devour the towering kelp forests that shelter hundreds of other species, from fish to seabirds. (5) A modest number of otters thus protects an entire underwater forest and the many creatures that live in it.

Which transition best connects sentence 2 to sentence 1?

(1) Plants cannot run away from the many animals that eat them, but some of them defend themselves by recruiting other species to fight on their behalf. (2) When caterpillars chew on the leaves of a corn plant, the plant releases a distinctive scent into the air. (3) The scent quickly draws tiny parasitic wasps, which follow it to the plant and lay their eggs inside the caterpillars' soft bodies. (4) As the wasp larvae hatch and grow, they slowly consume the caterpillars from within. (5) In this way, the corn plant turns the enemy of its enemy into a bodyguard.

Which choice, placed at the start of sentence 2, most clearly shows how it relates to sentence 1?

(1) Printmakers creating a woodcut, one of the oldest methods of printing pictures, begin by drawing an image onto a smooth block of wood. (2) Using sharp knives and gouges, they carve away all the wood around the lines of the drawing, leaving the image raised. (3) Ink is rolled across the block, coating only the raised areas. (4) A sheet of paper is pressed firmly onto the inked block, and the image transfers to the paper in reverse. (5) Because of this reversal, any letters in a woodcut must be carved backward on the block so that they read correctly on the finished print.

Which of the following would most logically begin sentence 4?

(1) The Atacama Desert in Chile is one of the driest places on Earth. (2) Some weather stations in the desert have never recorded any rainfall. (3) Life has found a way to thrive in this seemingly inhospitable environment. (4) Specialized microorganisms live within rocks, drawing moisture from the thin air and morning fog. (5) Certain hardy plants have deep root systems that tap into underground water sources far below the parched surface.

Which transition should be added to the beginning of sentence 3 to best clarify the relationship between sentence 2 and sentence 3?

(1) The Atacama Desert in Chile is one of the driest places on Earth. (2) Some weather stations in the desert have never recorded any rainfall. (3) Nevertheless, life has found a way to thrive in this seemingly inhospitable environment. (4) Specialized microorganisms live within rocks, drawing moisture from the thin air and morning fog. (5) Certain hardy plants have deep root systems that tap into underground water sources far below the parched surface.

Which transitional phrase best connects the idea in sentence 4 to the idea in sentence 5?

(1) Early forms of animation existed long before the advent of film. (2) Devices like the zoetrope, for instance, created the illusion of motion by showing a rapid succession of static images. (3) These inventions were popular novelties in the 19th century. (4) They laid the groundwork for the cel animation techniques that would dominate the 20th century.

Which transition best links sentence 3 and sentence 4?

(1) The rise of computer-generated imagery (CGI) in the late 20th century revolutionized the animation industry. (2) It allowed for photorealistic effects and large-scale scenes that were previously impossible to create. (3) Traditional, hand-drawn animation techniques are still valued for their unique artistic qualities and charm.

Which transition word best introduces the idea in sentence 3?

(1) The Colosseum's design was incredibly effective, allowing parts of the structure to survive for millennia. (2) It was not just an architectural feat. (3) It was the center of Roman public entertainment, hosting gladiator contests, animal hunts, and public spectacles.

Which transitional phrase could best be added to the beginning of sentence 2 to link it to sentence 1?