Quiz 6 · Relationships Between Ideas — The Talking Hands Series

First, the idea

Sentences in a passage don't just stand next to each other. They are joined, and the test asks about the joins constantly: how does sentence 4 relate to sentence 3? What is the second paragraph doing for the first? The skill is to name the connection.

In carpentry, a joint is where two boards meet, and the shape of the joint tells you how they work together: one board carries the other's weight, or the two interlock as equals. Sentences meet the same way. The joint between them tells you which one carries, which one follows, and which one pushes back.

These are the joints worth knowing, with the words that usually signal them:

Cause and effect. One idea makes the other happen. Signals: because, so, since, therefore, as a result. Because the M14 was rerouted, Amadou opens the store at 5:30 now.

Contrast. One idea pushes against the other. Signals: but, however, although, yet, instead. The stairwell lights are out again, yet no one has called the landlord.

Comparison. Two ideas stand together as alike. Signals: similarly, likewise, both, in the same way. Like the corner store, the laundromat keeps a chair by the door for the older neighbors.

Sequence. Time order, and nothing more. Signals: first, then, before, after, later. First the bins go out, then the gates come down, and the block goes quiet.

Example. A general claim, then one case of it. Signals: for example, for instance, such as. The garden feeds more than its members. Last August, for instance, the extra tomatoes went to the church pantry.

Problem and solution. Trouble, then what someone did about it — often with no signal word at all. The mailboxes at 148 Grove kept getting jimmied. The tenants pooled for a locking bank of boxes. The second sentence simply answers the first.

That last case is the important warning: many of the joints on the test carry no signal word. When the signal is missing, ask what the second idea is doing to the first — causing it, answering it, pushing against it, standing beside it as alike, giving one case of it, or only following it in time. And know that a joint can hide inside time words. Call that the costume: on the surface the pair looks like plain sequence, while underneath the second idea is answering or caused by the first. The mistake runs the other way too — reading then as if it said therefore. Two events in time order are not cause and effect until something in the passage links them.

Worked example — thinking out loud

The test for hidden joints, performed twice. Take this pair: Mr. Park's cooler broke during the August heat wave. That same week, he put the ice cream on sale. No signal word anywhere. The tempting read is sequence — that same week is a time phrase, so this is just one thing after another. Now run the test: what is the second sentence doing to the first? A broken cooler means melting stock, and a sale moves stock fast. The second sentence answers the first. This is a problem and its solution wearing sequence as a costume, and the time phrase was real — it just wasn't the joint.

Now the mirror case: Mr. Park's cooler broke in August. In September, the block association planted new trees on the corner. Same shape, same time words. Run the same test: does the planting answer the breakdown? Cause it? Give a case of it? Nothing connects them. This pair is sequence and only sequence, and calling it cause would be reading then as therefore. The order of events is the same in both pairs. The link is what differs, and the link is what you name.

Part A · The skill by itself

Short pairs first. Mr. Park's store, the community garden, and 148 Grove Street return from Quizzes 1, 3, and 5 — familiar ground, new joints.

1. The community garden's tomatoes came in strong this year. The peppers, however, came in small. What is the joint between these two sentences?

Comparison Contrast Cause and effect Example

2. The tenants of 148 Grove Street share the building's upkeep. Every Saturday, Mr. Rivera clears the stairwells. How does the second sentence relate to the first?

It gives an example of the claim It states the claim's cause It pushes against the claim It only comes later in time

3. The city repaved Grove Street in May. In June, two new shops opened on the block. What is the joint between these two sentences?

Cause and effect Problem and solution Sequence Example

Part B · The skill in the wild

A short true history, read for its joints. The small numbers mark sentences; the questions cite them.

THE HIGH LINE — A SHORT HISTORY

1In the early 1900s, freight trains ran down the middle of Tenth Avenue in Manhattan, sharing the street with wagons, workers, and children. 2The trains struck so many people that the newspapers called it Death Avenue. 3The city hired riders called the West Side Cowboys to go ahead of each train waving a warning flag, but the deaths continued. 4In 1934, the city and the railroad lifted the tracks off the street entirely: an elevated steel line, thirty feet in the air, running past the upper floors of factories and warehouses. 5For decades the line carried milk, meat, and produce straight into the buildings it served.

6Trucking, however, kept getting cheaper, and traffic on the line thinned. 7The last train ran in 1980, pulling three carloads of frozen turkeys. 8For years afterward the structure stood empty, and wild grasses seeded themselves in the gravel between the rails. 9Many property owners saw the rusting line as a burden and pressed the city to tear it down. 10Two neighbors, Joshua David and Robert Hammond, looked at the same structure and saw something worth keeping. 11In 1999 they founded a group, Friends of the High Line, to argue for saving it.

12Like the owners, they believed the old line would shape the neighborhood's future; unlike the owners, they wanted it standing. 13The group raised money and gathered allies, and in 2005 the railroad gave the structure to the city. 14In 2009 the first stretch opened as a public park, its walkway running through plantings modeled on the wild grasses that had grown there on their own. 15Today millions of people walk thirty feet above the street where the trains once ran.

4. What is the relationship between sentence 2 and sentence 4?

Sentence 4 gives an example of the trouble in sentence 2 Sentence 4 answers the problem in sentence 2 Sentence 4 pushes against sentence 2 Sentence 4 comes later in time, and that is the whole relationship

5. In sentence 6, the word however signals that sentence 6 —

gives an example of sentence 5 repeats sentence 5 in new words proves that sentence 5 caused sentence 6 pushes against the picture in sentence 5

6. What is the joint between sentence 6 and sentence 7?

Sequence only Contrast Cause and effect Comparison

7. Which best names the joint between sentence 9 and sentence 10?

Comparison Contrast Cause and effect Example

8. Taken whole, the passage is built as —

a comparison of two city parks a single problem and its single solution a list of dates with no connection between them a chain of problems and solutions, one leading to the next

The key — and why the tempting answers tempt

Part A

1. B. However pushes: strong tomatoes, small peppers. A is the near-miss — the two crops stand side by side, but side by side is not alike. Comparison says same; this pair says different.

2. A. Sentence one makes a general claim about shared upkeep; sentence two shows one tenant doing one job. D tempts because every Saturday is a time phrase — the costume. The second sentence isn't merely later; it's the claim made visible.

3. C. May, then June, and nothing in either sentence links the paving to the shops. A is then read as therefore. New shops after new pavement feels like cause, but a feeling is not a link. Until the passage connects them, order is all you have.

Part B — the High Line

4. B. Sentence 2 is the trouble; sentence 4 is what the city and the railroad finally did about it. D is true and idle — Quiz 2's old mold. Yes, 1934 comes later; that misses what sentence 4 does for sentence 2. Notice sentence 3 while you're there: a first fix that failed, standing between the problem and the answer that held.

5. D. Busy decades in sentence 5, thinning traffic in sentence 6 — however marks the turn. C reverses the wiring: sentence 5 didn't cause sentence 6. The cause named in 6 is cheaper trucking; the however only signals the push against 5's picture.

6. C. Cheaper trucking thinned the traffic, and the last train is where that thinning ended. Sentence 7 doesn't just follow sentence 6 — it follows from it. A is the mirror of the then-for-therefore mistake: refusing a real cause because it wears a date. The link is written into sentence 6.

7. B. The same structure, two readings: a burden to tear down, a thing worth keeping. No but anywhere — the contrast rides on saw and saw. A is the near-miss again: both sentences describe people looking at the line, and looking alike is not thinking alike. Sentence 12 sorts it out for you — alike on the future, split on the answer.

8. D. Deaths on the street, answered by the elevated line; the line abandoned, becoming the next problem; the park, answering that. Each solution opens onto the story's next trouble. B is the half-support: true through sentence 4 and silent about everything after. When an answer covers only the top of a passage, keep reading.