SAT® · Reading and Writing: Craft and Structure
Cause, Result and Continuation Signals
Words like because, since, thus and accordingly tell you the blank must agree with the idea next to it, not oppose it, because the sentence is claiming one thing causes or confirms the other.
Some linking words exist to point, not to turn. Because, since, thus, accordingly, and a plain semicolon all say: what comes next follows logically from what came before. If a sentence opens with because or since, the clause it introduces is giving a reason, and the blank elsewhere in the sentence has to make sense as a result of that reason. If a sentence uses thus or accordingly, it is announcing a conclusion, and the blank has to be the kind of conclusion that reason supports. None of these words introduce a twist. They introduce an echo.
This matters because the blank is never free to mean anything plausible. It has to mean the one thing that keeps the logic moving in the same direction. Thin, fast-draining soil, followed by accordingly, demands plants built to survive dryness, not plants that need lots of water. A ledger kept in a private code, followed by since, demands a reading that is uncertain or inferred, not one that is exact. The signal word is a set of directions: it tells you which way to walk before you even look at the answer choices.
A semicolon does the same job as because or thus when it joins two closely related clauses, but it does it silently. There is no word telling you to agree, so it is tempting to read a semicolon as a pivot, the way you would read but or however. It is not. A semicolon only joins; it never reverses. Reading the two clauses as continuous, rather than opposed, is what unlocks the right word. This same skill, tracking a text's logical shape, is what later questions ask you to do across an entire paragraph instead of a single sentence.
Key terms
- Continuation signal
- A word or punctuation mark showing the next clause agrees with and extends the idea before it.
- Causal connector
- A word like because or since that presents one clause as the reason for another.
- Result connector
- A word like thus or accordingly that presents a clause as the conclusion following from a prior reason.
- Semicolon link
- A punctuation mark joining two independent but closely related clauses without stating whether they agree or contrast.
Watch it explained
- How it worksHow do because, since, thus and accordingly point a blank in the same direction as its clause?
- Worked exampleFind the word for 'The soil is thin and drains fast; accordingly the plants that survive there are ______.'
- Worked exampleWalk me through the blank in 'Since the ledger was kept in code, the historian's reading of it is necessarily ______.'
- Common mistakeWhy doesn't a semicolon between two clauses mean the second clause contrasts with the first?
Check yourself
End of topic.