Statements: 1. The prices of vegetables have been increased considerably…

Concept: In Cause-and-Effect statement analysis, one statement is the CAUSE when its event can, on its own, bring about what the other statement describes; the other is then the EFFECT, since it follows from the first without producing it in return. When no such one-way link exists, the statements are read instead as independent causes, or as parallel effects of some separate, unstated common cause.

1. Statement II reports a sharp rise in temperature that damages crops.

2. Damaged crops directly shrink the supply of vegetables reaching the market.

3. A reduced supply against unchanged demand pushes vegetable prices upward, which is exactly the outcome Statement I reports.

Cross-check: Reversing the direction fails, since a rise in vegetable prices has no mechanism to raise the temperature or damage crops, so that direction cannot hold. And because one continuous chain links the two events, the statements cannot be read as unrelated or as parallel outcomes of separate hidden causes.

• Reversing which statement drives which fails here: an economic outcome such as a price change cannot produce a climatic event like a temperature rise.

• Reading the two statements as independent causes would mean each arises from its own separate, unrelated trigger, but one statement's event feeds directly into producing the situation in the other, so they are not free-standing.

• Reading both as effects of separate hidden causes would mean the two outcomes merely coincide, but here one statement's event is itself what generates the other's outcome, not a coincidence of two unrelated origins.