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Question

Difficulty: MediumCause-and-Effect Relationships

Passage

In the summer of 1858, an unusually hot spell caused the heavily polluted River Thames in London to ferment, creating an overwhelming stench known as the "Great Stink." For decades, the city's outdated cesspools and direct discharge of waste into the river had turned the Thames into an open sewer. This crisis did not merely offend the senses; it disrupted the city’s governance, as parliamentarians in Westminster struggled to work through the odor. Believing that disease was spread by "miasma" or foul air, Parliament felt compelled to take immediate action to neutralize the threat. Consequently, they rapidly passed legislation enabling the civil engineer Joseph Bazalgette to construct a massive, revolutionary underground sewerage system. This system redirected waste away from the city center toward the lower reaches of the Thames. While the new sewers were built primarily to eliminate the foul odor believed to carry cholera, they unexpectedly resolved a different issue. By diverting contaminated water away from urban drinking sources, the new infrastructure ended the city’s devastating cholera epidemics, which, unbeknownst to the public at the time, were waterborne rather than airborne.

According to the passage, the eventual eradication of London's cholera epidemics was a direct consequence of which of the following?

  1. the redirection of sewage away from the city's urban drinking water sources.Answer
  2. B
    the eradication of cholera epidemics, which prompted the subsequent redirection of sewage away from urban drinking sources.
  3. C
    the disruption of city governance that occurred when parliamentarians struggled to work through the river's odor.
  4. D
    the deliberate engineering of the sewerage system to target waterborne pathogens rather than airborne odors.

Answer

the redirection of sewage away from the city's urban drinking water sources.
The correct answer is the option stating that the redirection of sewage away from urban drinking water sources ended the epidemics. The passage states that the new infrastructure ended the cholera epidemics specifically by diverting contaminated water away from drinking sources.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the question stem to identify the target event.
The target event is the eradication of London's cholera epidemics.
This establishes the effect for which we need to find the cause.
2
Scan the passage for keywords related to the target event and trace the causal link.
The final sentences of the passage discuss cholera epidemics. The text states: 'By diverting contaminated water away from urban drinking sources, the new infrastructure ended the city’s devastating cholera epidemics...'
This provides the explicit cause-and-effect relationship where diverting contaminated water (the cause) led to ending the epidemics (the effect).
3
Evaluate the options against this causal link, avoiding reversed causality and unrelated details.
The option referring to the redirection of sewage away from drinking water matches the passage's explanation, whereas other options describe reversed causality, unrelated causes, or inaccurate details.
This confirms the correct choice and isolates the misconceptions presented in the distractors.

Key Concept

Identifying cause-and-effect relationships within a passage, distinguishing them from chronological orderings, reversed causal chains, or unrelated details.
Estimated Time:1m 30s
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Topics

Cause-and-Effect Relationships

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