ACT® · Reading — Key Ideas and Details: Relationships
Cause and Effect Inside a Paragraph
Watch it explained
- How it worksHow do you chain a paragraph's sentences into a line of boxes joined by causal arrows?
- Worked exampleShow me building the causal chain in a paragraph about a factory closing and a river clearing.
- Common mistakeWhy isn't the most dramatic event in a paragraph usually the cause?
- Going furtherWhat changes when a paragraph gives an effect first and its cause afterward?
Check yourself
Your turnmedium1 of 3
Informational passage:
The mill on the Aire closed in 1987, and the river ran clear within 16 months. Anglers came back, and with them a campaign to restock. The campaign raised its money in a single winter. But the mill had also drawn 11 million litres a day from the river and returned it warm, and the winter after the closure was the first in 48 years in which the shallows froze. The restocked trout, a strain chosen for warm water, did not survive it. Clear water and cold water arrived together, and one of them was wanted.
Which chain does the paragraph build?End of topic.