Statements: 1. The government has decided to make all the information related…

Concept: In cause-and-effect statement questions, the task is to determine the temporal and logical relationship between the two statements: one statement may describe a state of affairs that existed before and directly explains why the other statement's event or decision took place — that preceding, explanatory statement is the cause, and the statement describing the resulting action is its effect. The two statements are not independent causes unless each is triggered by a wholly separate, unstated factor, and they are not both effects of a common cause unless neither statement explains the other.

Application: Here, the second statement describes a pre-existing condition — in the past, the general public lacked access to information related to primary education. The first statement describes a subsequent decision — the government has now decided to make that information available. The action in the first statement is a direct response to the gap described in the second statement: an administration identifies a shortfall in public awareness/access and then acts to close it. So the situation in the second statement precedes and explains the decision in the first statement.

Cross-check against each alternative:

• Reversing the direction (treating the government's decision as the cause of the past lack of access) does not fit the timeline: the past condition described already existed before the decision was taken, and an effect cannot precede its own cause.

• Reading the two statements as independent, unrelated causes ignores that the second statement specifically names the very problem the first statement's action addresses — they are directly linked, not standalone events.

• Concluding both statements are effects of a separate, unstated cause requires an outside triggering event that the passage never supplies; the two statements are directly connected to each other, with no need to posit a common external cause.

So the described past deficiency is the cause, and the government's decision to make the information public is the effect that follows from it.