Skip to main content
SWStudyWalks Search

ACT Preparation / Unit 6   ACT 0509 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds

When No Transition Is Best

Captions available

The idea

An answer choice that removes the transition is sometimes right, and the test has three steps. First, name the relationship between the two sentences. Second, check whether any choice from the matching family fits without forcing a relation the sentences lack. Third, if the second sentence continues the first so directly that every connector misstates or overstates the link, or if the paragraph already signals the relation, choose the version with no transition.

In practice

Worked example: "The museum opens at nine. ___ The first tour starts at ten." The choices are therefore, however, for example, and no transition. The sentences give two times in order; nothing contrasts, results or illustrates. Therefore claims a cause that is not there, however a contrast, and for example an illustration. With no transition, the plain sequence stands, and it needs nothing.

Where people slip

Omitting a transition is not automatically safe. Where a turn or a result is real, the reader needs the signal, and leaving it out hides the logic.

Your place on the trail

Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.

Something wrong in this lesson? Flag it  ·  Sources for ACT Preparation