Zinstaak: oorzaak
A sentence task that gives you an effect and asks you to finish the sentence with its cause.
The printed half of the sentence already states what happened — a meeting moved, visitor numbers fell, prices rose. Your half must supply why, and it must point backwards: from the effect to something that came before it. The difficulty is not finding a cause. It is that the connector in the stem, usually doordat or aangezien, has already decided the word order of everything you write, and that a cause which merely repeats the effect in other words is not a cause at all.
How the exam tests this
Schrijven II has 9–12 tasks in 100 minutes, and roughly 7–8 of them are single sentences. A cause task usually prints the effect and ends on the connector, so your whole answer is one subordinate clause. Two assessors mark against a scheme, and our practice items use the same three questions: does the sentence express the relation that was asked for, is the connector used correctly including its word order, and does the content fit the situation. A cause in main-clause order fails the second; a cause that is really a consequence fails the first.
What is wrong with this sentence?
…, doordat steeds meer mensen zoeken informatie online.
Most candidates write it exactly like this and lose the mark without knowing why.
The rest of this lesson
The rule, the worked examples, the exceptions and what to do in the exam room open with Mastery, together with every other lesson for this exam.
See plans