Today’s SAT question of the day is an improving sentences question about transitions, idiom, and adverbs all at once…though it might look like a preposition issue, too.

When I first read the sentence, I had no idea what the underlined word should be. So, I broke it down:

• the subject is the nations
• the main action is taking steps toward greater integration
• this action took place during the reconstruction period

Now I know that the first word needs to have the effect of “during”: we need to make those actions a part of the reconstruction period.  As does the job!

There is nothing wrong with plugging the answer choices in one by one to see what fits, but that process can be misleading (if you get distracted by all of the options) and time-consuming.  It’s always better to answer the question yourself, when possible, before looking at the answer choices!