Cause and Effect in Reading

Many CSE Professional reading items boil down to one question: according to the passage, what made what happen? You will see stems like "According to the passage, the decline in enrollment was caused by...", "Which of the following resulted from the new ordinance?", and the trickier "The passage suggests that X led to Y because...". These items are about the passage's logic, not the world's. Your job is to map the causal arrows the author actually drew, including the ones drawn without any signal word at all.

Signal words: the visible arrows

Causal language points in two directions. Confusing them is the fastest way to lose these points.

Introduces a CAUSE	Introduces an EFFECT
because, since, as	so, thus, therefore, hence
due to, owing to, on account of	as a result, consequently
caused by, results from, stems from	led to, resulted in, brought about, gave rise to
thanks to, in the wake of	which is why, accordingly, triggered

Read direction carefully. "Results from" and "resulted in" look like twins but point opposite ways: "The flooding results from clogged canals" (canals = cause); "The clogging resulted in flooding" (flooding = effect). Exam writers exploit exactly this.

Conditional signals (if, unless, provided that, whenever) mark cause-effect relationships that have not necessarily happened: "If the reservoir drops below 30 percent, rationing begins." The cause is hypothetical, but the arrow is real, and items may ask what would happen under the condition.

Worked example 1: direction of the arrow

Attendance at the municipal night classes fell sharply this semester. The drop stems largely from the rerouting of the last jeepney trip, which now leaves the poblacion at 7:30 p.m., a full hour before classes end. Students who live in the upland barangays can no longer get home safely, so many simply stopped enrolling.

Question: According to the passage, the main cause of the drop in attendance is (a) the poor quality of night classes, (b) the earlier departure of the last jeepney trip, (c) students' loss of interest in schooling, (d) unsafe conditions inside classrooms.

"Stems from" introduces the cause: the rerouted last trip. The rest of the paragraph traces the mechanism (students cannot get home, so they stop enrolling). The answer is (b). Choice (c) is a trap: students did stop enrolling, but the passage presents that as the effect's final step, not as loss of interest. Never accept an effect dressed up as a cause.

Implicit causation: arrows without signal words

Authors often imply causation through sequence and juxtaposition, trusting the reader to connect the events:

The bridge toll was removed in January. By March, daily crossings had tripled, and roadside stalls on the far bank reported their best sales in years.

No "because" appears, yet the passage clearly invites you to read the toll removal as the cause of the tripled crossings and improved sales. The exam asks: "The passage implies that the increase in crossings was due to..." You answer from the implied arrow.

How to confirm an implied arrow rather than invent one:

• Order and proximity. The proposed cause appears immediately before the effect, often with a time marker ("By March...").
• Mechanism plausibility inside the passage. The passage gives you the connecting logic (no toll, cheaper to cross, more crossings). If you must import outside knowledge to connect the events, the passage has not implied it.
• Author's framing. Words like "soon after," "within weeks," and "in the months that followed" signal that the author intends the sequence to be read causally.

Chains of causes

Professional-level passages build chains: A causes B, B causes C, C causes D. Items then ask about a specific link, or about the first cause or the final effect. Sketch the chain with arrows in your mind (or on scratch paper) before answering.

Worked example 2: a causal chain

The prolonged dry spell lowered the water level of the irrigation dam. With less water released to the canals, second-crop rice farmers planted only half their usual area. The smaller harvest pushed up the price of local rice, and several rice traders shifted to selling imported stock instead.

Chain: dry spell -> low dam level -> less canal water -> half the planted area -> smaller harvest -> higher local price -> traders shift to imports.

Question: According to the passage, traders shifted to imported rice because (a) the dry spell destroyed imported stock, (b) local rice became more expensive after the smaller harvest, (c) the dam released too much water to the canals, (d) farmers refused to sell to traders.

The link immediately before the shift is the higher price of local rice, itself caused by the smaller harvest. The answer is (b). Notice the exam habit: the question asks about the last link, and wrong choices garble earlier links (c reverses the water release) or invent events (d). When a chain item confuses you, find the two events named in the question and check only the link between them.

Also watch for multiple causes of one effect ("The delay was blamed on the late delivery of cement, the rains, and a labor shortage") and one cause with multiple effects. Items may ask which was NOT mentioned as a cause; answer strictly from the list in the passage.

Correlation wording versus causal claims

The most professional-level twist: passages that carefully claim only correlation, while the tempting wrong answer upgrades it to causation. Learn to hear the difference.

Correlation wording (no causal claim)	Causal wording (claim made)
is associated with, is linked to	causes, produces, leads to
tends to accompany, often occurs with	results in, brings about
coincided with, rose alongside	because of, due to
areas with X also report Y	X drives Y, X is responsible for Y

A passage that says "Barangays with active sports programs also report lower rates of youth vagrancy" has NOT said the programs reduce vagrancy. Maybe they do; maybe active barangays differ in other ways; maybe the causation runs backward. If the item asks "Which conclusion is best supported by the passage?", the supported answer preserves the hedge: "Lower vagrancy rates tend to occur in barangays with sports programs." The overreaching answer, "Sports programs reduce youth vagrancy," is wrong because the passage never drew that arrow.

Worked example 3: refusing the upgrade

A study of 40 municipalities found that those with computerized business permit systems processed renewals faster on average than those without. The study's authors noted, however, that computerized municipalities also tended to have larger budgets and more permanent staff, and cautioned against attributing the speed difference to the software alone.

Question: Which statement is best supported by the passage? (a) Computerization causes faster permit processing. (b) Larger budgets have no effect on processing speed. (c) Faster processing was observed in computerized municipalities, but the study did not establish the software as the sole cause. (d) Municipalities should immediately computerize their permit systems.

The passage reports an observed difference and then explicitly blocks the causal upgrade ("cautioned against attributing... to the software alone"). The answer is (c). Choice (a) makes the claim the authors refused to make; (d) adds a recommendation found nowhere in the passage.

Common traps

• Reversed arrows. Wrong choices swap cause and effect ("the fare hike caused the fuel price increase"). Reread the signal word and check which way it points.
• Effect offered as cause. As in Worked Example 1, a middle step of the chain is presented as the root cause.
• Sequence-only fallacy in your own head. That B followed A in the passage does not mean the author implied causation; look for time-link framing or mechanism. Conversely, do not demand the word "because" before accepting an arrow the author plainly drew.
• The correlation upgrade. "Linked to" in the passage becomes "causes" in a choice. The upgraded choice is wrong no matter how believable it sounds.
• Outside knowledge. You may know the real cause of inflation or flooding; the item asks what the passage says. Answer from the text alone.
• NOT/EXCEPT items. When asked which was not a stated cause, check each choice against the passage's explicit list; the correct answer is often plausible but simply absent.

Exam strategy

1. On the first read, circle (mentally) every causal signal word and note its direction.
2. For chain passages, sketch the chain as arrows before reading the choices. Ten seconds of sketching prevents the garbled-link traps.
3. Match the question's two events to the passage and verify the link between exactly those two, ignoring the rest of the chain.
4. Sort every choice's verb: does it claim causation or only association? Then match to what the passage claimed. Passage hedges, answer hedges.
5. When two choices survive, prefer the one closer to the passage's own wording and weaker in its claim; the exam rewards the answer that adds nothing.

Cause-effect items reward disciplined literalism. The passage draws the arrows; you just refuse to add, reverse, or upgrade them.