5 exercises — choose the correct cause-and-effect connector (thereby, consequently, due to, because, which caused) for technical descriptions of system failures, deployments, and performance analysis.
0 / 5 completed
1 / 5
The connection pool was exhausted, ___ causing response times to spike to over 30 seconds.
"Thereby" means "by that means" or "as a result of that" — it introduces a participial phrase showing the means or consequence: "thereby causing response times to spike." Crucially, "thereby" must be followed by a gerund ("-ing" form), not a finite clause. "Therefore" introduces an independent clause: "...therefore, response times spiked." Both are formal, but "thereby + gerund" is more commonly used in technical descriptions of cause-and-effect chains. "Thus that" is not a standard connector. "However" shows contrast.
2 / 5
The cache was not invalidated after the schema change. ___, stale data was served to approximately 15% of users.
"Consequently" introduces a result or consequence that follows logically from the previous statement. It is a formal connector used in incident reports and technical analyses to link cause and effect across separate sentences. Other result connectors: "As a result," "Therefore," "Hence," "Thus." "Nevertheless" and "meanwhile" express contrast and simultaneous events respectively. "In addition" adds information. In postmortem writing: "The cache was not invalidated. Consequently, stale data was served."
3 / 5
___ the network partition, the consensus algorithm failed to reach quorum.
"Due to" is a prepositional phrase followed by a noun phrase: "due to the network partition." It cannot be followed by a clause. "Because" introduces a clause (subject + verb): "because the network partitioned." "Since that" is not a standard connector. "As a result" introduces a consequence clause, not a cause: "As a result, the algorithm failed" — you would use it the other way around. In formal technical writing, "due to" is preferred over "because of" for written documentation, though both are acceptable.
4 / 5
The server ran out of disk space, ___ the logging daemon crashed, ___ alerts stopped being sent.
"Which caused" introduces a non-defining relative clause that expresses a consequence. The pattern is common in technical incident reports for chaining effects: "X happened, which caused Y, which meant Z." Each "which" refers to the entire preceding event (the relative pronoun refers to the clause, not just the noun). "That" cannot be used in non-defining relative clauses. "Causing / meaning" (participle chains) are also grammatically possible: "The server ran out of disk space, causing the daemon to crash, meaning alerts stopped." But the relative clause chain is more formal.
5 / 5
The performance degraded ___ the new caching strategy was not yet optimised for high-concurrency reads.
"Because" introduces a subordinate clause (with a subject and verb) explaining a reason: "degraded because the new caching strategy was not optimised." "As a result," "consequently," and "thereby" all introduce effects/consequences, not causes. They come after the cause, not before the effect within a single sentence. Rule: cause connectors before a clause = "because," "since," "as," "given that." Effect connectors = "therefore," "consequently," "as a result," "hence," "thus." This distinction is essential for clear technical writing.