Cause and Effect

Cause and Effect is one of the most interesting sections of verbal reasoning. It seems so natural that most candidates don’t even bother preparing for it. In this section, two statements will be present. You will have to figure out which of them is the cause and whether the effect is what is present or not. In the following section, we will introduce the principle of causality and see what its implications are for the IBPS PO, SBI PO and other banking exam paper patterns.

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Cause and Effect

Let us start with the principle of causality. Causality means that everything that “happens” around us has a cause. For example, say the sun rises in the east. It is because the Sun is a star present at the centre of the solar system and the earth spins on its own axis, causing the sun to appear rising from the east and setting into the west. This is not the what the principle of causality states. The principle of causality states that causes precede effects. In other words, the cause of an effect has to happen before the effect.

Let us see some examples. Consider this statement: “The fielder didn’t catch the ball”. “There was a huge uproar from the crowd”. The two statements follow each other. If the statement one was actually related to the statement two, then I must have happened before II. This is causality.

If two statements or events are related to each other in such a way that the occurrence of one of the events affects the occurrence of the other event, then causes precede effects.

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Types of Causes

An event may have more than one cause. For example, the revolutionary war of some country. Clearly more complex events can have multiple causes. In this case, there are three main kinds of causes:

1. Immediate Cause: This is the cause that has occurred most recently. Consider the example of snowfall. Water is heated by the sun and it evaporates into the atmosphere. Once in the atmosphere, it cools down to a very low temperature and precipitates as snow. There are a few causes that have led to snowfall. The most immediate being the fact that the raindrops freeze in the low temperatures of the atmosphere.

2. Principal Cause: This is the main cause responsible for an event. The immediate cause may or may not be the Principal cause.

3. Independent cause: This is the cause that is independent of the events. In other words, the effect and the cause may not have a direct relationship or any relationship at all.

Although in the bank PO exams this principle is not focussed upon, we still need to know it to solve these questions that follow. Let us see how these questions look like first. Then we shall develop methods and tricks to solve them in the following sections. Let us see the examples first.

Solved Examples

Directions: In the space below each question has two statements – I and II. These statements may be either independent causes or may be the effects of independent causes or a common cause. Read both the statements carefully and choose which of the following answer choices correctly depicts the relationship between them.

A) If statement (I) is the cause and statement (II) is the effect.
B) If statement (II) is the cause and statement (I) is the effect.
C) If both the statements (I) and (II) are independent causes.
D) If both the statements (I) and (II) are effects of some independent causes.
E) If both the statements (I) and (II) are effects of some common cause.

Example 1:

I: The Government is passing stronger laws against rape.

II: The new government has not been successful in controlling this heinous act for some time now.

Answer: The second statement is a cause and the first is its effect. So the correct option that we shall pick here is B).

Example 2:

I: We will memorise five words a day, and thus add almost 150 words to our vocabulary in a months time.

II: The bank PO exams are in a month’s time.

Answer: Even though they might be a cause or event for some particular candidate but we can’t speculate that. No information is to be added on our side. As far as the two statements go, they are independent causes and the answer to this question is D).

Practice Questions

Directions: In the space below each question has two statements – I and II. These statements may be either independent causes or may be the effects of independent causes or a common cause. Read both the statements carefully and choose which of the following answer choices correctly depicts the relationship between them.

A) If statement (I) is the cause and statement (II) is the effect.
B) If statement (II) is the cause and statement (I) is the effect.
C) If both the statements (I) and (II) are independent causes.
D) If both the statements (I) and (II) are effects of some independent causes.
E) If both the statements (I) and (II) are effects of some common cause.

Q 1: I: It was very cold today.

II: The weather channel has reported that temperatures will drop.

Ans: E)

Q 2: I: They left earlier than they had planned to.

II: There was an unexpected change in the time of their flight.

Ans: E)

Q 3: I: The mobile phone prices have dropped drastically.

II: The supply of mobiles has increased tremendously.

Ans: A)