American Diploma · ACT · Reading: Key Ideas and Details

Relationships: Sequence, Cause–Effect and Comparison

How to answer ACT Reading questions about the order of events, causes and effects, and comparisons, including how to map a timeline when a passage jumps in time.

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What this question type tests

Relationship questions ask how pieces of information in the passage are connected: what happened before what (sequence), what made something happen (cause–effect), and how two people, ideas or things are alike or different (comparison / contrast). They belong to Key Ideas and Details, the largest reporting category on ACT Reading (44–52% of the scored questions). They appear in every passage type, but the literary narrative (fiction or memoir), which is always one of the three scored passages, is where timelines matter most.

Relationship	Typical stem (in our own words)	What you must check
Sequence	"Which of the following events happened first?" / "…happened immediately before…" / "At the time of X, the narrator had already:"	Order in TIME, not order on the page
Cause–effect	"According to the passage, X happened because:" / "…was a result of:" / "One effect of X was:"	Which event is the cause and which is the result
Comparison / contrast	"Compared with A, B is described as:" / "The narrator contrasts himself with Hany by showing that:"	BOTH sides of the comparison, each matched to the right person or thing

The key fact about these questions: most wrong choices contain true facts from the passage, connected the wrong way. A wrong choice may list two real events in the wrong order, give a real event as the cause when it was actually the result, or give one person's quality to the other person. Knowing the facts is not enough; you must check the connection.

Sequence: map the timeline

Narratives, especially memoirs, rarely tell events in time order. A writer may start in the present ("Last October…"), jump back twenty years, move forward through childhood, and return to the present at the end. Reading order is not time order.

Find the "now" of the passage. Phrases such as *now, today, last October, these days*, and the present tense ("I am a teacher") mark the present.
Collect the time signals: ages ("the winter I was nine"), seasons, years, *before, after, then, the following spring, by March, years later, when he started university*.
Watch the past perfect. *Had + past participle* ("he had bought it", "I had read every comic") shows an event earlier than the main story at that point.
Number the events on your scrap paper in time order, with a short label each: 1 arm broken (9) → 2 first win (10) → 3 grandfather dies (11) → 4 Friday games → 5 club → 6 youth group → 7 gift (last Oct) → 8 airport.
Answer from the map, not from the page order. For "immediately before" questions, check that nothing happened in between.

✓ / ✗	Statement about the chess memoir
✗	"The passage begins with the earliest event." (It begins with the most recent one.)
✓	"The narrator's first win came after the winter he broke his arm." (the following spring)
✗	"The grandfather died before teaching began." (He died two years later, when the narrator was eleven.)
✓	"The youth group existed before Hany left for Doha." (six years of work vs last October)

ترتيب الأحداث = ترتيب الزمن مش ترتيب القراءة

في القصص والمذكرات الكاتب ممكن يبدأ من النهاية ويرجع بالذاكرة لورا (flashback). اعمل خط زمني صغير على الورقة: رقّم الأحداث 1، 2، 3 حسب الكلمات اللي بتدل على الوقت زي the winter I was nine, the following spring, years later. وخلي بالك من had + V3 لأنها معناها إن الحدث حصل قبل.

Cause–effect: which way does the arrow point?

A cause–effect question asks for the reason the passage gives, not a reason that seems sensible. Find the signal word, then draw the arrow: cause → effect.

Signal words	Pattern	Example
because, since, as, due to, owing to	effect BECAUSE cause	"Hany was a slow teacher because he was a slow player."
so, therefore, as a result, that is why, which led to	cause, SO effect	"His weekends filled with projects, and the Friday games stopped."
when / after (sometimes)	cause WHEN effect	"When he started university, … the games stopped."
to / in order to	action TO purpose	"I joined the club partly to fill the empty afternoons."

Reversal test. Read the choice as "A caused B." Then ask: does the passage say A caused B, or B caused A? ✗ "He stopped playing with Hany because he preferred the club." ✓ "He joined the club because the games with Hany had stopped."
Next-door is not cause. A fact that sits in the sentence just before an effect is not automatically its cause. "I began to win about as often as he did" comes right before the games stop, but the passage gives a different reason.
Linked is not caused. In social science and science passages, a study may find that two things occur together ("cities with more trees had lower temperatures"). Unless the passage says one causes the other, a choice that says "caused" goes too far.
More than one cause. If the passage gives two reasons, a choice that names only one may still be correct, but a choice that names a reason the passage does not give is always wrong.

Comparison and contrast: check both halves

Comparison choices have two halves, one for each side. Each half must be true, and each must belong to the right side.

Signal words	Use
like, similarly, both, also, the same as, just as	Similarity
unlike, whereas, while, but, by contrast, where ("careful where I was quick"), instead of, on the other hand	Difference
more than, less than, -er than, not as … as	Degree

✓ "Hany thought before acting, while the narrator acted first." (both halves correct)
✗ "The narrator was careful, while Hany was quick." (both halves true of SOMEONE, but swapped)
✗ "Hany was careful, and the narrator was cleverer." (half-right: the second half is invented)
Make a two-column note when a passage compares two people or ideas: *Hany | narrator: careful | quick; instructions first | instructions after*.

Worked examples

Read this short social science excerpt (shorter than a real ACT passage, so we can focus on the method). Notice that it does not tell events in time order.

Today the Thursday market in the town square draws traders from six villages, but it almost disappeared. Thirty years ago, the town council moved the market to a field outside town to reduce traffic in the centre. Because the new site had no shade and no bus stop, many older customers stopped coming, and within three years half the stalls were empty. The decision was reversed only after the shopkeepers on the square, whose own sales had fallen when the market left, collected signatures and presented them to the council. Unlike the field, the square had shade from its old trees and stood close to the bus station. By the time the market returned, the council had also closed two nearby streets to cars on Thursdays, which solved the traffic problem that had started the whole story.

Timeline: 1 market moved to field (to reduce traffic) → 2 older customers stop coming → 3 half the stalls empty → 4 shopkeepers' sales fall, petition → 5 two streets closed → 6 market returns → 7 today: six villages.

Worked example 1 — sequence

Question: Which of the following happened first?

A) The shopkeepers collected signatures.
B) Traders from six villages came to the square.
C) The market was moved to a field outside town.
D) Two streets were closed to cars on Thursdays.

Answer: C. Event 1 on the timeline: "Thirty years ago, the town council moved the market." Everything else follows from it.

A is wrong — Event 4: a response to the move.
B is wrong — Reading-order trap: it is the first sentence, but it describes TODAY, the last point on the timeline.
D is wrong — "By the time the market returned, the council had also closed…" — the past perfect places it after the move but before the return.

Worked example 2 — cause–effect

Question: According to the excerpt, many older customers stopped coming to the market because:

A) half of the stalls were empty.
B) the field had no shade and no bus stop.
C) the shopkeepers' sales had fallen.
D) the town centre had too much traffic.

Answer: B. "Because the new site had no shade and no bus stop, many older customers stopped coming." The signal word *because* points straight to B.

A is wrong — Reversed: the empty stalls were a RESULT of customers leaving ("and within three years half the stalls were empty").
C is wrong — Wrong relationship: falling sales were another effect of the move, and they caused the petition, not the customers' absence.
D is wrong — Wrong link: traffic was the council's reason for moving the market, not the customers' reason for leaving.

Worked example 3 — comparison

Question: Compared with the field, the square is described as:

A) having shade and being close to the bus station.
B) having shade but being farther from public transport.
C) being larger and closer to the six villages.
D) having less traffic and more parking.

Answer: A. "Unlike the field, the square had shade from its old trees and stood close to the bus station." Both halves of A match.

B is wrong — Half-right: shade is correct, but the second half reverses the bus station detail.
C is wrong — Invented: size and distance to the villages are never compared.
D is wrong — Not stated, and the traffic was a problem IN the centre, not an advantage of it.

Worked example 4 — cause–effect (solution)

Question: According to the excerpt, the traffic problem was finally solved by:

A) moving the market to a field outside town.
B) collecting signatures from the shopkeepers.
C) bringing the market back to the square.
D) closing two nearby streets to cars on Thursdays.

Answer: D. The last sentence: closing the streets "solved the traffic problem." The relative clause *which solved* gives the effect.

A is wrong — The first attempt to solve it, which created new problems; the passage does not say it solved anything.
B is wrong — The cause of the council's change of mind, not of the traffic solution.
C is wrong — Wrong cause: the streets had already been closed "by the time the market returned," and the passage credits the closures, not the return.

Classic traps

Reading order = time order. The first event you read about is often the most recent. Build the timeline.
Reversed cause and effect. The result is offered as the cause ("stalls were empty, so customers left").
Next-door cause. A true fact placed just before the effect, but not the reason the passage gives.
Swapped comparison. Each quality is real, but given to the wrong person or thing.
Half-right comparison. One side is correct; the other side is invented or reversed.
"Linked" read as "caused". In science and social science passages, a connection is not automatically a cause.

Fast strategy for test day

Literary passages: as you read, jot a quick timeline with ages, seasons and time words.
Circle signal words in your mind: because, so, as a result, unlike, while, by the time, had + past participle.
For cause–effect choices, say "A caused B" and check the arrow against the text.
For comparisons, check each half separately and make sure it belongs to the right side.
Every relationship answer needs a proof sentence that states the connection, not just the facts.

السبب والنتيجة

الفخ المشهور إن الاختيار يقلب السهم: يقولك النتيجة على إنها السبب. قول لنفسك: A سبّب B؟ وارجع للجملة اللي فيها because أو so أو as a result. وفي المقارنة اتأكد من النصين: كل صفة لازم تكون للشخص الصح.

Practice

Now try a full literary narrative (a memoir of about 730 words) with 9 questions on sequence, cause–effect and comparison. It is untimed, but aim for about 10 minutes. Build the timeline while you read: the memoir does not tell its events in order.

Remember

Sequence, cause–effect and comparison questions are part of Key Ideas and Details (44–52% of scored ACT Reading questions).
Reading order is not time order: map the timeline with time words, ages and had + past participle.
Cause–effect: find the signal word and check which way the arrow points.
Comparison: check both halves, and check that each belongs to the right side.
Wrong choices usually contain true facts connected the wrong way.

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