Reading Comprehension 03 - Cause and Effect 3
Read these two sentences:
‘Anamika has fallen sick.’
‘Anamika will not go to school.’
From the two sentences it appears that Anamika will not be attending school because she has fallen sick. From these two sentences we can establish a cause-effect relationship. What is the reason for Anamika not attending school? The answer is that she has fallen sick and hence is unable to attend school. Thus, we see that a cause-effect relationship has been established.
The characteristic of this relationship is that the cause of something always happens first and the effect is what happens next as a result of the cause. In the above example we find that Anamika first became sick (cause) and the result was that she will not go to school (effect).
In our daily lives we encounter a host of situations that exhibit the cause-effect relationship. When we watch the TV news or read the daily newspaper we often see that the government reduced taxes or the police closed a particular section of the road to traffic or the selectors dropped a cricketer from the Indian team. All these actions are taken due to some cause. More often than not, one cause can have several effects. For instance, the cause of police closing traffic could result in commuters getting angry and traffic on other roads increasing.
Another facet of the cause-effect relationship is the chain reaction that can be set in motion as a result of the primary cause. For instance, in the traffic example, commuters could take more time to reach their destinations because they have to take a detour on account of the road being closed. By being able to pinpoint a cause-effect relationship we will enhance our understanding and you will better comprehend what you read, hear or see. The quiz that follows tests your capability to identify the cause-effect relationship.