6th grade cause and effect worksheets

Tap to see another sample sheet.

Sixth grade cause and effect worksheets ask how causes work together. A dust storm needs plowed soil and a drought, and a club can lose its room for two reasons at once. Questions ask which causes combined and which listed event caused nothing. Some ask what would have changed if one link had never happened.

Free printable PDF worksheet.

Each click picks one of the 15 passages written for this grade. Every sheet comes with its answer key. You don't need to sign up.

The kind of passages you'll get

Read the passage. Then circle the letter of the best answer for each question.

The Sticky Table

By November, the Westbrook chess club met in the cafeteria, at a sticky table between the mop closet and the milk cooler. Owen, the club president, knew exactly whose fault that was. In September the club had met on Thursdays in a corner of the…

  1. The story opens with the club in the cafeteria. What first set off the chain that put it there? Owen joined a team that practiced on Thursdays · Ms. Brandt gave the chess corner away · Lucía beat Owen in nineteen moves · kids waiting for the bus watched the games

    Answer: Owen joined a team that practiced on Thursdays

  2. Which two causes together cost the club its library corner? too few members, and another group on Tuesdays · the twins' anger, and Ms. Brandt's dislike of chess · spilled milk, and a damp cafeteria floor · Lucía joining, and the club growing too big to fit

Each print picks one of the 15 passages written for this grade, and its questions come with it. With 15 to pick from, a second print can land on one you've used, so check the title before you hand it out.

What's on a 6th grade sheet

6th grade sheets draw from 15 passages, 297 to 328 words long. 5th and 6th grade print from the same 15 passages. The teaching notes below are written for this grade.

Some of the titles: The Lake That Turns Over, A Reef Gone Pale, Twenty-Six Serves, The Quiet Trumpet, Boats in the Desert, No Pollen, No Squash.

Every version prints on US Letter or A4, with its answer key on the last page.

How to teach this

Try the what-if test. Pick a link in the chain and ask what would change if it had never happened. If the ending still happens, that link was not a real cause. Then ask what the chain is for. In nonfiction, the chain is often the author's point: taking wolves out of Yellowstone ended up thinning the willows and driving off the beavers, so one animal can matter to a whole valley. Ask your sixth grader what the chain proves, the same question middle school science and history will ask.

Watch for: Kids pick the event that comes first in the SENTENCE as the cause, but writers often name the effect first: 'The game was canceled because of rain.' The word because points to the cause, wherever it sits. Two things happening near each other is not cause and effect. The dog barked and the mail came, but the barking did not deliver the mail. Ask whether one truly made the other happen.

Common questions about 6th grade cause and effect

How is 6th grade cause and effect different from 5th grade?
Sixth grade adds multiple causes and what-if reasoning. Your child decides which two causes worked together and spots the event that is listed but caused nothing. Other questions ask what would have changed if one link had gone differently.
What is a counterfactual question?
It asks what would have happened if one event had gone another way. If the bus had been on time, would Sam still have missed the test? The answer comes from the chain in the passage: take out one link and see which effects disappear with it.

Related worksheets

Ready to print one?

Want a different passage? Print again. Each print picks one of the 15.

Reviewed by the One more sheet team. Content version 241, updated October 2026.

Spot a mistake on this sheet? Tell us. · About these worksheets