3 mistakes learners make with cause and consequence, each one named and explained.
Events have several causes of different weights, and coming first is not the same as causing.
Because one event happened before another, it is given as the reason for it.
Time order is the easiest relationship to see, and it looks like explanation.
Question. Event A happened in 1928 and event B in 1933. Does A explain B?
A common answer. Yes, because A came first
The answer. Only if a link can be shown between them
Why. Order alone is not a link. You have to show how the earlier event changed what was possible for the later one.
After you write because, check you can show the mechanism.
A war or a revolution is explained by a single event with no other factors weighed.
One cause makes a clean story, and exams reward a clear line, so the other factors get dropped.
Question. What caused the outbreak of the First World War?
A common answer. The assassination at Sarajevo, on its own
The answer. A set of causes, with the assassination as the trigger
Why. The assassination lit a fuse that alliances, militarism and imperial rivalry had already laid. A trigger is not the whole cause.
Separate the trigger from the long-term causes, and say how they connect.
An answer describes what happened in order without saying how far, or why, or which mattered most.
Retelling is what we can do most fluently, and it feels like showing knowledge.
Question. How far was economic hardship the main cause of unrest?
A common answer. A description of the unrest in order
The answer. A judgement on economic hardship weighed against other causes
Why. How far asks for a weighing. The narrative is raw material for that judgement, not a substitute for it.
Answer the question word: how far, why, to what extent.
WAJD spots these patterns in your child's answers and names the one behind their wrong answers, instead of just marking them wrong.