GMAS 8th Grade ELA Practice Test

Cause-and-effect in informational text shows how one event leads to another, and you can spot it by reading for signal words that signal results or reasons—because, therefore, as a result, and similar phrases—and by tracing how actions cause specific outcomes. When you see a sentence that says something happened because of something else, or that a result followed a prior event, you’re mapping the cause to the effect. For example, if the text says a drought reduced crop yields, and prices rose as a result, you can connect the drought (cause) to the higher prices (effect).

Why this works better than other ideas: dates on a timeline just show order, not why things happened or how one thing caused another. A detail like an author’s favorite color has no bearing on events and their consequences. Skipping outcomes hides the link between cause and result, making it harder to understand why things changed. Focusing on signal words and the way events lead to outcomes helps you see the actual relationships the author is describing.