Texas Education Agency Practice Test

Coherence in a narrative comes from how smoothly ideas connect from one sentence to the next and across the whole paragraph. Using transitional phrases such as "as a result," "however," or "in addition," and keeping ideas in a logical order helps the reader see the relationships and progression—cause and effect, contrast, sequence, and emphasis. When the text follows a clear path from setup to development to outcome, the reader can easily follow the story or argument without getting lost. This approach directly strengthens coherence by guiding attention and clarifying how each sentence relates to the one before and after. In contrast, using fewer adjectives changes descriptive quality but doesn’t fix the logical connections; breaking all sentences into fragments disrupts grammar and makes the flow choppy; starting with the conclusion can reveal the outcome but often deprives the reader of needed context and interrupts the narrative progression, which harms coherence.