Same Direction or Opposite Direction First

Picture an arrow between the two sentences you're connecting. If the second sentence agrees with, adds to, or follows naturally from the first, the arrow runs straight on. If the second sentence pushes back, contradicts, or undercuts the first, the arrow doubles back. Every connector choice belongs to one of these two piles, and nothing else about the word matters until you've picked the pile. That's the whole move: read the two sentences, decide which way the arrow has to point, then throw out every choice from the wrong pile in one pass.

This works because the four answer choices are almost never split evenly. Usually three point one way and one points the other, so direction alone kills three-quarters of the field, or at least narrows you to a pair that still needs a second look for register or precision. Sort first: moreover and furthermore run straight on, adding one fact to another in the same spirit. However and nevertheless double back, setting up a contrast or a concession. Therefore also runs straight on, but it signals a conclusion drawn from what came before, not just an added fact, so once you're down to two straight-on words, that distinction decides it.

This sits right before the harder half of these questions, where you build a sentence from bullet notes to hit a stated goal. Direction sorting is the fast first filter there too: once you see whether the notes agree or clash, you know whether you're reaching for an opposite-direction connector or none at all, and you can spend your remaining attention on matching the goal's wording instead of rereading every option from scratch.