[mark123]

What I meant by "continuity" is just the simple go/no-go feature of my multimeter. With the selector knob in the ohms measurement position, I have the option of two "modes" with a selector button. One mode displays the actual measured resistance in ohms on the meter readout, the other mode simply displays "open" or "shrt" on the readout, with a short-circuit indication accompanied by an audible beep tone.

Is this a bad evaluation technique? Should I stick solely to the ohms readout mode or should I apply voltage to the transformer (variac) and measure the output voltage, which was my original question.