5 exercises — practise linking cascading effects with "in turn".
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses "in turn" to show a chain of cause and effect in a root-cause analysis?
"The disk filled up, which slowed the write path; this, in turn, caused the queue to back up" correctly places "in turn" as a parenthetical adverbial between commas, right before the verb it modifies. Option B misplaces the comma inside "in turn caused". Option C incorrectly inserts "of" into the fixed phrase. Option D reverses the word order to "turn in", which is not the correct phrase.
2 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses "in turn" to link two consecutive effects without commas, in a leaner technical style?
"Reducing batch size lowers memory pressure, which in turn improves tail latency" correctly places "in turn" directly before the verb "improves", immediately after the relative pronoun "which". Option B reverses the two words to "turn in". Option C misplaces "in turn" after the verb, splitting it awkwardly from the object. Option D moves "in turn" before "which", which is not standard.
3 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses "in turn" across three linked clauses to describe a cascading failure?
"The upstream service timed out, which caused retries to spike, which in turn exhausted the connection pool" correctly places "in turn" between "which" and the verb "exhausted" in the final clause of the causal chain. Option B splits "in turn" away from the verb it modifies. Option C moves "in turn" before "which", disrupting the relative clause. Option D adds an incorrect comma between "exhausted" and its object.
4 / 5
Which sentence correctly uses "in turn" at the start of an independent clause, set off by a comma, to link two full sentences?
"The cache was invalidated too aggressively. This, in turn, increased load on the origin server" correctly sets off "in turn" with a comma both before and after, as a parenthetical adverbial following the subject "this". Option B is missing the first comma before "in turn". Option C incorrectly places a comma inside the verb phrase "in turn increased". Option D breaks the fixed phrase "in turn" apart with a misplaced comma.
5 / 5
Which sentence correctly avoids confusing "in turn" (chained causation) with "in return" (reciprocal exchange) in a technical explanation?
"Enabling compression reduces payload size, which in turn lowers bandwidth costs" correctly uses "in turn" because one technical effect causes a further effect, not a reciprocal exchange. Option B incorrectly substitutes "in return", which implies something given back in exchange, not a causal chain. Option C incorrectly inserts "for" into the fixed phrase. Option D garbles "returns" and "in turn" together, producing an ungrammatical clause.