How do I choose the right transition on the Digital SAT?

Cover the choices. Read the sentence before the blank and the sentence after it, and say what the second does to the first: adds to it, turns against it, gives its result or gives an example. Then pick the word from that family. Choosing by how a word sounds is how the wrong answers are built to catch you.

What are the families of transition words?

Four cover most questions. Same direction: moreover, furthermore, in addition. Opposite direction: however, nevertheless, on the other hand. Cause and effect: therefore, consequently, as a result. Example: for example, for instance, specifically. Time order and saying something again, as in other words, turn up now and then.

Why does however sound right when it is wrong?

Transitions questions are written so that two or three choices sound fine read aloud, and a paragraph that feels like an argument makes however feel at home. The word has to match what the second sentence does to the first. If the second agrees with the first, a contrast word is wrong however natural it sounds.

Should I read the whole paragraph for a transitions question?

Read it for context if you have time, but decide from the two sentences either side of the blank. The blank reports one relation, between the sentence before it and the sentence it opens. A turn somewhere else in the paragraph has no say.

What if two answer choices come from the same family?

Then the direction alone cannot settle it. Ask what the second sentence brings: a new point, the same point reworded, or one case of it. Each of those jobs belongs to its own word. Naming the family comes first, and it removes most of the choices.

Transition questions: name the relationship first

Cover the choices. Read the sentence before the blank and the one after it, and say what the second does to the first: goes the same way, goes the other way, gives the result, or gives an example. Then find the one word in that family.

1.Cover the answer choices. A transition is chosen by the relationship between two sentences, never by how a word sounds.
2.Read the sentence before the blank and the sentence after it. Say out loud what the second one does to the first.
3.Name the family. Does it agree and add a point, turn against the first, give the result, or give one case? Say the job in your own words before you look at a single word.
4.Uncover the choices and cross out every word from another family. The word that is left is the answer.
5.Read the pair once with your answer in place. You are checking the relation, not the sound.

Try it on a question

Work it below before you open the working. The steps say what to do, and you can do each one yourself.

Olive growers on the island have long picked their fruit by hand in November, climbing ladders among the old trees. ______ a young grove planted on the flat ground by the road is harvested by a machine that shakes the olives from the branches in a single afternoon. Both groves supply the same press.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Choice A: Therefore,
Choice B: However,
Choice C: For example,
Choice D: Moreover,

1
Read the two sentences and ignore the gap. Choose what the second sentence does to the first: adds a point, turns against it, says what follows, or gives one case.
2
A wrong choice gets a question to ask of the pair, never the answer. Ask it, and try again.
3
Once you have named the job, the four words arrive and three of them fall away. Look for the pair where a word fits the tone and fails on the direction.

Two sentences and a gap

1 of 8

Say what the second sentence does to the first. Only then look at the words that could fill the gap.

The sports hall has a new floor. the gap its changing rooms were rebuilt last summer.

1. What does the second sentence do to the first?

2. Now the word. Which one does that job?

Name the relationship first.

The full working, and why each wrong choice is there

Cover the choices and read the two sentences either side of the blank. The first says the growers pick by hand. The second says a young grove is harvested by a machine. The second sentence sets a different method beside the old one, so it turns against the first. That is the opposite-direction family, and however is the only word offered from it. The other three belong to the families for a result, an example and an added point.

Choice A: Therefore,
A result word would claim that picking by hand caused the machine harvest. The two methods sit side by side, and neither produced the other.
Choice B: However,the answer
The first sentence describes the old way, by hand. The second describes a different way, by machine. The two point in opposite directions, so the word has to turn against the first sentence.
Choice C: For example,
An example would have to be one case of picking by hand. A machine harvest is not a case of that, it is the other way of doing the job.
Choice D: Moreover,
This word adds a point that runs the same way as the first. The second sentence runs the other way.

Use it when

The question asks for the most logical transition, and the four choices are words or short phrases such as however, therefore, for example or moreover.
The blank opens the second of two sentences, and the choices differ in meaning rather than in punctuation.
Two or three choices sound natural when read aloud. That is the moment to stop listening to them and name the relationship instead.

Do not use it when

The choices differ in a mark, such as a semicolon, a comma or a full stop around the same word. That is a punctuation question, and it takes its own test.
Two of the choices come from the same family. Naming the direction has done what it can: ask next what the second sentence brings, a new point, the same point reworded or a single case.
The question asks which word fits the meaning of a blank in a sentence, or what a sentence does for the whole passage. A transition move settles how two sentences relate and nothing else.

Five questions on this move

Untimed, and nothing is saved. A wrong first answer gets one more try before the working is shown.

Question 1 of 5

Residents who oppose the proposed bypass say it would pave over a water meadow that floods every few winters. ______ they argue that the road would cut through two stretches of ancient woodland, which no planting elsewhere could replace. The council replies that the bypass would take thousands of lorries out of the town centre.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

Five is a start

In your account there is a focused set of ten on Transitions from the question bank, with the same one more try. And after each practice test, the drills your plan sets for the skills you missed name the moves for them.

Practise Transitions in your account

How this page was checked

Every transition, by our list of transition families
For each of the 6 questions on this page, what the second sentence does to the first is recorded, and an automated test checks that the keyed word is the only one on offer from that family.
The whole page, by a person
Not yet. Every question and every item of its lab was worked through in a browser by Claude, an AI assistant, on 14 October 2026. The page was published on 14 October 2026 before a person had read it. If something here is wrong, tell us and it is put right.

The questions were drafted with AI and are original: none is a College Board question, and none comes from the question bank behind our practice tests.

Where this comes from

“Name the relationship, then the word” is one card from the Preptics lesson Transitions: match the direction, which sits under the Digital SAT skill Transitions. The lesson has the other cards around it, and its questions come back for review on a schedule. The lessons are part of the Digital SAT track.

Common questions

How do I choose the right transition on the Digital SAT?: Cover the choices. Read the sentence before the blank and the sentence after it, and say what the second does to the first: adds to it, turns against it, gives its result or gives an example. Then pick the word from that family. Choosing by how a word sounds is how the wrong answers are built to catch you.
What are the families of transition words?: Four cover most questions. Same direction: moreover, furthermore, in addition. Opposite direction: however, nevertheless, on the other hand. Cause and effect: therefore, consequently, as a result. Example: for example, for instance, specifically. Time order and saying something again, as in other words, turn up now and then.
Why does however sound right when it is wrong?: Transitions questions are written so that two or three choices sound fine read aloud, and a paragraph that feels like an argument makes however feel at home. The word has to match what the second sentence does to the first. If the second agrees with the first, a contrast word is wrong however natural it sounds.
Should I read the whole paragraph for a transitions question?: Read it for context if you have time, but decide from the two sentences either side of the blank. The blank reports one relation, between the sentence before it and the sentence it opens. A turn somewhere else in the paragraph has no say.
What if two answer choices come from the same family?: Then the direction alone cannot settle it. Ask what the second sentence brings: a new point, the same point reworded, or one case of it. Each of those jobs belongs to its own word. Naming the family comes first, and it removes most of the choices.

Keep going

Every move: the full set. The calculator on its own: the graphing calculator.

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