ACT Preparation / Unit 16 ACT 1524 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
A Cause-and-Effect Question
The idea
A cause-and-effect question is answered in three steps. First, decide whether the question asks for a cause, why something happened, or an effect, what followed from it. Second, find the event in the passage and look nearby for signal words such as because, since, therefore and as a result. Third, choose the answer the passage presents as the link, not one that is merely nearby or earlier.
In practice
Worked example: an invented passage reads, "The town's fishing fleet shrank through the 1980s. When the cannery closed in 1991, younger workers left for the city, and the school lost a third of its students." Why did the school lose students? Because younger workers left after the cannery closed. The shrinking fleet came earlier, but the passage does not connect it to the school.
Where people slip
Causes can chain: the cannery's closing caused the leaving, which caused the school's loss. Answer the link the question asks about.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Builds on
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