A paragraph, one sentence at a time
Choosing each connection from where the paragraph has actually got to, not from the sentence alone.
Passage
A student is assembling a paragraph about a coastal footpath. Each sentence is added to the ones before it, and the connective has to fit the paragraph so far rather than the new sentence on its own.
The footpath was closed in 2019, after a section of cliff gave way.
___ (1) walkers have used an inland diversion that adds two miles to the route.
___ (2) the council has costed a permanent clifftop path at £1.4m.
___ (3) no money has been allocated to build it.
Answers in order, explanations withheld, and a report on where the chain broke.
- 35.1TransitionsFoundation
Which choice belongs in blank 1?
- ASince then,
- BBy contrast,
- CFor example,
- DNevertheless,
Show the answer and reasoningHide the reasoning
Since then,
The closure is dated and the diversion is what has happened in the time after it, so the connection is a stretch of time. The diversion is neither an opposite of the closure nor an instance of it.
- 35.2TransitionsStandard
Builds on: Question 1, which established that the paragraph is running forward in time from the closure. A costed proposal is the next step in that sequence rather than a break from it.
Which choice belongs in blank 2?
- AIn response,
- BEven so,
- CSimilarly,
- DThat is,
Show the answer and reasoningHide the reasoning
In response,
A costed permanent path is an answer to the problem the first two sentences have set out. "Even so" would mark it as happening despite them, and "that is" would make it a restatement of the diversion, which it is not.
- 35.3TransitionsStandard
Builds on: Question 2 set up a remedy. This sentence takes it away again, and the transition is the only thing telling the reader that the paragraph has turned.
Which choice belongs in blank 3?
- AHowever,
- BTherefore,
- CIn addition,
- DFor instance,
Show the answer and reasoningHide the reasoning
However,
Having a plan and having the money for it point opposite ways, and the sentence exists to say so. "Therefore" would make the absence of funding follow from the costing, which reverses the relationship.
- 35.4OrganizationChallenge
Builds on: Question 3, which ended the paragraph on an absence. A closing sentence has to answer the question that absence raises, and the only usable answer here is the route that exists.
The student wants to close on what a reader can do now. Which sentence should be added last?
- AThe diversion is signposted from the village car park.
- BThe cliff fall was the third in the county that decade.
- CThe council first surveyed the path in 1974.
- DCoastal erosion is expected to continue along this stretch.
Show the answer and reasoningHide the reasoning
The diversion is signposted from the village car park.
Only one choice is about what is available to a walker today, which is what "what a reader can do now" asks for. The other three are background or forecast, and ending on the forecast would leave the paragraph where the funding sentence already left it.