Critical Thinking Skills Review Study Guide

Troubleshooting Problems Study Guide

You learned how to troubleshoot problems by thinking ahead, identifying issues that could get in your way, and taking care of them. You also learned about unforeseeable problems, those inconveniences that hold you up as you work toward a goal. Another type of troubleshooting involved problem-causing trends. This must be used when you are consistently faced with the same type of problem, in order to figure out how to prevent it in the future.

Decision Making Resources Study Guide

This lesson stressed getting accurate information. If you have a decision to make, or a problem to solve and you do not know what to base a decision on, or if there are factors that need to be considered that you are not familiar with, you need to consult other resources. They include the Internet, libraries, and experts.

Fact or Opinion Study Guide

Here, you learned that a fact is something that can be proven true while an opinion can't. And you discovered the importance of knowing if information is accurate and objective or false and/or biased. To trust any source, you need to check out the author's credentials, documentation and quality of sources, and others' opinions of the source. This is essential, especially when researching on the Internet, where just about anyone can publish and make it seem legitimate.

Persuasion Techniques Study Guide

This lesson examined how to recognize persuasion techniques used in speech, writing, and advertising. Three persuasion techniques described by Aristotle thousands of years ago (logos, pathos, ethos) are still used today, along with rhetorical questions, hyperboles, and comparisons. These techniques are used in persuasive advertising, where the marketer aims to manipulate your spending habits by making you want to buy his or her product or service. When you understand how persuasion works, you can avoid being swayed by it and use it to your advantage.

Manipulating Statistics Study Guide

You learned how numbers can sometimes lie. Whether by deliberate misuse, negligence, or plain incompetence, the facts and figures we see, hear, and read are not always the truth. It all happens in one, or both, of two key areas. First, numbers must be gathered. If they are collected incorrectly or by someone with an agenda or bias, you need to know that. Second, numbers must be analyzed or interpreted. Again, this process can be done incorrectly, or by an individual or group with an agenda. Surveys, correlation studies, and statistics were examined.

Rational Decision Making Study Guide

This lesson covered the role emotions play in the decision-making process. Emotions and emotional situations explored included bias and stereotypes, stress, and the ego. When emotional responses are recognized and used appropriately they can be an effective component of critical thinking. The goal is to acknowledge and understand the emotions that may influence your decision making, so you can determine when and where to let them become part of the solutions and decisions you make.

Deductive Reasoning Study Guide

You learned that in deductive reasoning, an argument is made based on two facts, or premises. These premises could be rules, laws, principles, or generalizations. If they are true, it should follow that the conclusion of the argument must also be true. But, the conclusion must follow logically from and not go beyond or make assumptions about the premises. If it does not, the argument is said to be invalid.

Deductive Fallacy Study Guide

Arguments that have an error in logic, or a fallacy, are invalid. This lesson explored four of the most common logical fallacies: slippery slope, which has true premises but the conclusion takes them to an extreme; false dilemma, which presents only two options (either/or) when there are really more; circular reasoning, which has just one premise, and the conclusion simply restates it; equivocation, which uses a word twice, each time with a different meaning, or one multiple-meaning word that creates ambiguity.

Inductive Reasoning Study Guide

This lesson showed how to recognize and construct an inductive argument. Induction is the process of reasoning from the specific (particular facts or instances) to the general (principles, theories, rules). It uses two premises that support the probable truth of the conclusion. To determine what is probable, you must use past experience and/or common sense. The two forms of inductive arguments are comparative (comparing one thing, event or idea to another to see if they are similar), and causal (trying to determine cause from effect).

Inductive Fallacy Study Guide

You learned that an inductive fallacy has either has two premises that don't adequately support the conclusion, or a conclusion that doesn't fit the premises. You explored four common fallacies: hasty generalization, which doesn't have enough evidence in the premises to support the conclusion; chicken-and-egg, which claims cause and effect without enough evidence; post hoc, ergo propter hoc, which incorrectly assumes that because one event preceded another, it caused it; and composition, which draws a conclusion based only on the parts of a whole.

Common Logical Fallacies Study Guide

This lesson covered logical fallacies that distract from the real issue, putting an opponent on the defensive. Three such techniques are: red herring, in which the opponent of an argument throws in an irrelevant topic to change the subject to one with which he or she is more comfortable; straw man, which distracts from the original argument by creating a weaker one that is easier to attack; and ad hominem, which attacks the opponent instead of the issue.

Judgment Call Study Guide

You learned that judgment calls are subjective, debatable decisions that have four characteristics: the stakes are high, needed information is incomplete or ambiguous, other people disagree about them, and they sometimes involve conflicting values. It's necessary to always take the time to evaluate all the risks and weigh the consequences of each possible decision.

Argument vs. Explanation Study Guide

You learned that an explanation is made up of two parts: the explanadum, what will be explained; and the explanans, the statements that do the explaining. A good explanation gives new information, the topic is accepted as fact, it's relevant, and when accepted, removes or lessens a problem. An explanation answers the question, "why?" An argument, on the other hand, gives reasons (premises) that are evidence for a conclusion and may be opinions or value judgments. Explanations are neither of those.

types of Critical Thinking Exams Study Guide

In this lesson, you discovered how to use the skills when you take exams to get into colleges or grad schools or to get a job. Critical reading questions on tests measure your ability to understand a passage, draw inferences, analyze information, and critique others peoples' arguments. Other tests measure science reasoning, analytical writing, and logical and situational reasoning.

Tip

Summarize each lesson yourself. Draw a triangle and write the three most important facts, one in each corner. Use this technique with everything you read to help you help you remember what you read and increase your critical-thinking skills!

In Short

Now that you have reviewed each of the lessons, it is time to test your skills with the Critical Thinking Practice Quiz.

Exercises for this concept can be found at Critical Thinking Skills Review Practice Exercises.