Statements: I. The government has recently fixed the fees for professional…
2026
Statements:
I. The government has recently fixed the fees for professional courses offered by the unaided institutions which are much lower than the fees charged last year.
II. The parents of the aspiring students launched a severe agitation last year protesting against the high fees charged by the unaided institutions.
- A.
Statement I is the cause and statement II is its effect
- B.
Statement II is the cause and statement I is its effect
- C.
Both the statements I and II are independent causes
- D.
Both the statements I and II are effects of independent causes
Attempted by 3 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B
Cause-and-effect reasoning tests whether one described event directly and chronologically triggered another. A valid cause must occur before its effect and supply a plausible, direct trigger for it; an event that occurs after another cannot have caused it, and two events count as independent causes only when neither explains the other.
Statement II reports that parents protested last year against the high fees charged by the unaided institutions. Statement I reports that the government has recently fixed lower fees for the same institutions. Since Statement II's protest happened earlier and directly supplies the government's motive for the later fee reduction in Statement I, Statement II is the cause and Statement I is its effect.
Reversing the direction fails the timing test: Statement I's action happened after Statement II's protest, so it could not have caused an event that had already occurred the previous year. The statements are also not independent, since one directly motivates the other, so the causal link runs from Statement II to Statement I.