Transition words

Honeybees have no photoreceptor for red light and cannot distinguish a red blossom from the dark green leaves around it. ______, flowers that depend on bees for pollination are almost never pure red; they tend toward blue, violet, and yellow.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• A) Similarly,
• B) Accordingly, ✓
• C) For example,
• D) Nonetheless,

Why: The passage explains that honeybees "cannot distinguish a red blossom from the dark green leaves around it," and then draws the consequence: flowers relying on bees "are almost never pure red." Because the flower color is presented as an effect of the bees' vision limits, the blank needs a cause-and-effect transition, which "Accordingly," supplies. "Similarly," wrongly implies the flower-color fact merely resembles the bee-vision fact rather than following from it. "For example," wrongly treats flower coloration as an instance of bee vision, but the two are different categories, a color pattern and a visual limitation, not a case-and-category relationship. "Nonetheless," wrongly signals concession or contrast, when the flower coloration is a direct, expected result of the bees' inability to see red rather than something that pushes against it.

Soil that holds a great deal of clay drains slowly, so a heavy rain leaves water standing in the root zone for days and many crops drown. ______, sandy soil sheds water almost as fast as it arrives, and the same rain can leave a field dry by the following afternoon.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• A) Accordingly,
• B) For example,
• C) Conversely, ✓
• D) In addition,

Why: Clay holds water and sand sheds it, so a transition marking an opposite case is needed. Result invents causation between the two soils, and addition and illustration both file sandy soil under the slow-draining case it contradicts. For example, is illustration, treating sand as an instance of slow-draining soil. Accordingly, is result, though sandy soil's behaviour is not an effect of clay's. In addition, is addition, which would make fast drainage another problem of clay soil.

Critics of participatory budgeting point out that the residents who show up to allocate a city's discretionary funds are not a cross-section of the city: they are older, wealthier, and more likely to own their homes than the population as a whole. ______, the projects they choose cluster in the districts they live in, which is the outcome the process was meant to prevent.

Which choice completes the text with the most logical transition?

• A) However,
• B) For example,
• C) In other words,
• D) Furthermore, ✓

Why: The clustering of projects is a second charge in the same case against participatory budgeting, so a transition marking addition is needed. Contrast turns a supporting point into an objection, illustration confuses where money goes with who attends, and restatement treats a new claim as a rewording. For example, is illustration, though where projects land is a further finding, not an instance of who attends. In other words, is restatement, when the distribution of projects is a separate claim from the composition of the meetings. However, is contrast, but the clustering extends the criticism rather than answering it.