Dear Teacher, Welcome to the page of Critical Thinking Test Items.Dear colleague, On this page you'll find : 1. Critical Thinking definitions and teaching 2. Critical Thinking tests online 3. Critical Reading test items 4. More Definitins, Teaching strategies, Tutorials, Resources and Assessment at the end of this page. =================================================== We make a distinction here between Critical Reading test items and Critical Thinking test items. We present here samples of Critical Thinking test items and Critical Reading test items in addition to various Language skills testing techniques. For Training and Background Material and Lists of Critical Thinking Skills, Go to our Critical Thinking page http://www.angelfire.com/super2/abdallah_education/critical_thinking/
Free Critical Thinking Tests online http://www.insightassessment.com/SampleTest1.html Reasoning and Critical Thinking skill online sample test with explanations http://www.insightassessment.com/Sample%20Test2.html Reasoning motivation and disposition items http://www.testingthinking.com/thinking/ns/ Primary level Tests are free online (requires registration) http://tsa.ucles.org.uk/about.html free short Critical thinking test and a 50-item longer critical test (requires JavaScript) with a downloadable Answer Key http://www.wwc.edu/2632.0.html Sample of California Critical Thinking Skills Test http://www.collegeboard.com/student/testing/sat/about/sat/reading.html SAT Reasoning Test samples ( includes sentence completion and Passage-based reading) http://www.4tests.com/exams/questions.asp?exid=6449563&googlebot=6 SAT Critical reading 1 (25 questions) and SAT Critical reading 2 (25 questions) http://www.pimahb.se/web3/indexeng.html Five personality online tests (requires registration) =========================================== Teaching Critical Thinking http://www.skepdic.com/refuge/ctlessons.html Critical Thinking lessons http://www.austhink.org/critical/pages/definitions.html Definitions of Critical Thinking http://www.austhink.org/critical/pages/critical_reading_and_writing.html Teaching Critical Thinking and writing http://academic.pg.cc.md.us/~wpeirce/MCCCTR/ttol.html Strategies for teaching thinking http://www.fallacyfiles.org/ Examples of unlogical reasoning http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking Critical thinking definition and history =================================================== Critical Thinking Skill: Identifying Cause/ Result Sentence level Underline the clause that shows an effect in the following sentences: a. I broke my bicycle, so now I need a new one. b. I can't buy a new PC today because I can't afford to. ============================= Skill: Identifying Cause/ Result Sentence level Complete the following sentences with a logical clause: a. Our car didn't work in the morning; as a result, -------------------. b. If TV programs were more interesting, ----------------------------. c. -------------------------------------, consequently, the headmaster told us to go home. Skill: Detecting bias Sentence level Write balanced or biased on the space provided before each sentence below according to your evaluation of the expressed point of view. - ------ Some people seldom read newspapers.
- ------ All newspaper readers are well-informed.
- ------ Many TV viewers feel that cartoon films are interesting.
- ------ All newspaper news are true.
- ------ Watching the news on TV is a silly waste of time.
- ------ Some people rarely watch TV news.
- ------ The events in drama films are always true.
- ------ Perhaps the popularity of films on DVDs made cinemas less popular.
- ------ Newspaper editors do not always tell us the truth.
================================================= Skill: Drawing inferences Short text level The following item was quoted from: Stanley, Nancy.(1984), The Best TOEFL Test Book, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading, Massachchusetts,USA. Read the texts below and answer the questions that follow. Your answers should be based on the texts. "Los Angeles, host of the 1932 and 1984 Olympics, was founded in 1781, though the oldest house still standing in the city goes back to only 1818. Unlike San Francisco, it was mainly settled by people who traversed the United states by land. It may be inferred from the text that: a. The early settlers of San Francisco reached it by land. b. No houses were built in Los Angeles between 1781 and 1818. c. A few buildings in Los Angeles are more than 200 years old. d. There are no eighteenth-century buildings in Los Angeles." Skill: Drawing inferences Short text level What makes this a joke? 'An estate agent's assistant, whose job was to write advertisements for houses for sale, wrote a proposal of marriage to the girl in the office upstaires, -O Eth.wi.y.mry.me? Lf.wd.be.wrthls.wtht.y.' a. He has mis-spelled it all. b. He has used the spellings for advertisements for an unusual purpose. c. He could easily have spoken to her. d. He must be illiterate. Skill: Drawing Conclusions Short text level The following item was quoted from: Stanley, Nancy.(1984), The Best TOEFL Test Book, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading, Massachchusetts,USA. Read the paragraph below, then write Reasonable or Not Reasonable on the space before each statement. Fadi walked quickly into the living room as he entered the house. He could hardly see anything. No one was there, but he felt the presence of someone else. As he reached for the phone to call the police, the room lit up and voices shouted, "Surprise!" a. -------------- Someone is committing a burglary. b. -------------- Someone is moving into a new house. c. -------------- Someone is giving a party. d. -------------- The lights are off as the story begins. e. -------------- The phone isn't working. ============================================== Skill: Drawing inferences Short text level "Recent research into whether people who are good at solving brain twisters are more intelligent than those who are not suggests that the "experts" make use of a special type of insight. However, not only do they appear to be good at this (choosing which elements to process, to combine or to compare from the information given), but they are clever at making use of " general" or prior knowledge and at monitoring their own progress with a particular problem. In addition, they appear capable of adopting an appropriate cognitive style consisting of a combination of impulse and reflection. Just what this combination is still mystifies the researchers, and so does the original question, to which their answer is a somewhat frustrating "possibly'. What is the best title for this text? a. The Nature of Intelligence b. Are Brain Twisters Tests of Intelligence? Doubt Stays c. Brain Twisters; How Everyone Can Solve Them d. The Cognitive Style of Brain-Twister Writers Which of the following may not be inferred from the text? - Experts at brain twisters use different talents from non-experts
- There are several factors affecting success with brain twisters.
- Both impulsive and reflective thinking play a role in soving brain twisters.
- The researchers were frustrated by brain twisters
- What does the author seem to feel about the research?
a. Selectively interested b. Interested but in partial agreement c. Interested but somewhat dissatisfied d. Interested but completely puzzled" Skill: Checking validity of claims Text level The following item was quoted from: Phillips, Terry et al, (1996), AMRA: Advanced English (Language), Student's Book. Ministry of Education, Amman, Jordan. Text 1 The folowing text is an advertisement. Where is your car NOW? With CAR FINDER you’ll always know-even when it’s stolen! Car theft is rising in Britain. Park your car somewhere and when you come back, it’s gone. You’re not even safe parking outside your own house. Do you know where your car is now? Are you sure? Now comes CAR FINDER -- the latest invention which ensures that you know where your car is every minute of the day. It finds your car quickly, so it’s more likely that it will come back in one piece! And you won’t have to spend a fortune on hiring cars either. CAR FINDER, endorsed by the police and promoted by the British Car Club, is the 21st-century solution to a growing problem of the 1990s. It is based on a system which has already proven effective in Japan, where police reports show that 96% of all stolen cars fitted with this system were recoverd-- many of them in under an hour. And an added bonus--Japanese police say they caught the thieves with the car in 33% of cases-- ten times the national average. The powerful transmitter enables the police to pinpoint your car anywhere within a 200-mile radius of London – even when hidden in a garage. But my car’s insured, you say. Why do I need to worry? Ask some of the victims who have had their cars stolen. There’re thousands of them about! Firstly, you may wait weeks--sometimes months--to get the insurance money. In the meantime, you must hire a car or rely on public transport. And, what's more, when you get the money, it may not cover what you think the car was worth. Or, perhaps worst of all you may finally get the car back, badly damaged. With CAR FINDER you have peace of mind. Wherever you leave the car, the hidden transmitter is protecting it. And because of this extra protection, most major insurance companies offer discounts to owners of CAR FINDER—sometimes as much as 20%. Recovery can be expensive, so we offer a special recovery insurance which covers all the costs involved. And if you belong to BCC, you are entitled to free recovery as soon as the police have completed their inspection of the car. Well, a sophisticated system like this is not cheap, of course. But the expense is well worth it—especially when compared with the cost of a good car alarm system, which can, in most cases, be disabled in seconds by professional thieves. You must have seen one of those films where James Bond—or whoever—is following the villain's car from a distance by looking at a small radar screen. Well, CAR FINDER works like that. A hidden transmitter sealed into the body of the car is activated when the car is stolen. It immediately begins to send a powerful signal which can be picked up on police in-car computers. The police can track your vehicle from the moment it is taken. The transmitter goes on working for up to one month. All you have to do is call the number below and we will advise you of the nearest installer. He will call and give you a quote for fitting the device to your vehicle. And he can usually arrange fitting within a week. For more details, phone now, free on 0800 12 34 56, quouting ref. no 81. Alternatively, write to CAR FINDER, Freepost (AB12), Newtown, Hants, RG2 3AD. Text 2 This is an article from a UK consumer magazine about crime. Tracking down car thieves Theft from cars and theft of cars is a serious problem world-wide. Overall, Britain has a very bad record on car crime—the worst in Europe in fact. An epidemic, the British police have called it. Theft of cars was up 2% in England and Wales last year and in 1993 nearly 600,000 cars were stolen—one every 52 seconds. Recorded theft of property from cars fell by 4% over the same period, but, says the Home Office, this is misleading as only one in three thefts is actually reported. It is likely therefore that this is also rising. A new device on the market claims to be a breakthrough in the fight against car crime. It is an electronic tracker – a new, high-tech way of recovering stolen cars. At around 400 dollars, the device costs considerably more than the most expensive car alarm. The company which makes the device claims the system is endorsed by the police, although the Home Office refused to confirm this. Although said to be promoters of the device, the British Car Club would only say that anything which assisted in the fight against car crime must be a good thing. It is claimed that the police can trace your car wherever it is hidden within 200 miles of London – hard luck if you live in Glasgow – with receivers fitted to their cars. But policemen we spoke to said few cars were equipped as yet and one said he doubted if signals would reach low-lying parts of the country which couldn't even pick up BBC radio programmes yet! Statistics from Japan are impressive, however. There the homing device would appear to have made a dramatic impact on recovery and arrest rates. But British insurance companies are wary. Although some give discounts for factory-fitted car alarms, we did not find any willing to give a discount for this system. As one insurer said: " This does not stop the car being stolen in the first place. Many stolen cars are damaged or written off within minutes of being stolen. We prefer better methods of preventing criminals breaking into cars and then better ways of immobilizing them so they can't be driven away." a. Advertisements always stress the advantages of their products. That's why information in advertisements must be evaluated. Is it accurate? Identify unsupported claims in Text 1. Car Finder is endorsed------------. ----------------------------------. b. Do the 'facts' from the advertisement in Text 1 check out? Find out sentences or phrases in Text 2 that are related to the claims in Text 1 . ----------" the Home Office refused to confirm this." -----------------------------------------------------------. ======================================== Critical Reading Critical reading questions generally ask for the following kinds of information: 1. the main idea of the passage. 2. the author’s opinion or point of view. 3. A definition of vocabulary in context. 4. An inference from content or tone. 5. Referential questions 6. Inferential questions 7. Use of cohesive devices 8. The writer's attitude 9. An interpretation of words or concepts. 10. In the case of more than one text, a comparison or contrast of material. Samples: Critical reading questions generally ask for the following kinds of information: 1. the main idea of the passage. 2. the author’s opinion or point of view. 3. A definition of vocabulary in context. 4. An inference from content or tone. 5. Referential questions 6. Inferential questions 7. Use of cohesive devices 8. The writer's attitude 9. An interpretation of words or concepts. 10. In the case of more than one text, a comparison or contrast of material. Samples: Skill: Identifying form/function of structure words Sentence level Draw a line under the word since when it means as and two lines when it means from time to time in the following sentences: a. He couldn't come out since he was doing his homework. b. Since I last saw you I have got a new job. c. Since Jane was the eldest, she looked after the others. References Phillips, Terry et al, (1996), AMRA: Advanced English (Language), Student's Book. Ministry of Education, Amman, Jordan. Stanley, Nancy.(1984), The Best TOEFL Test Book, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading, Massachchusetts,USA Skill: Identifying Cause/ Result Sentence level Underline the clause that shows an effect in the following sentences: a. I broke my bicycle, so now I need a new one. b. I can't buy a new PC today because I can't afford to. ============================= Skill: Identifying Cause/ Result Sentence level Complete the following sentences with a logical clause: a. Our car didn't work in the morning; as a result, -------------------. b. If TV programs were more interesting, ----------------------------. c. -------------------------------------, consequently, the headmaster told us to go home. Skill: Detecting bias Sentence level Write balanced or biased on the space provided before each sentence below according to your evaluation of the expressed point of view. - ------ Some people seldom read newspapers.
- ------ All newspaper readers are well-informed.
- ------ Many TV viewers feel that cartoon films are interesting.
- ------ All newspaper news are true.
- ------ Watching the news on TV is a silly waste of time.
- ------ Some people rarely watch TV news.
- ------ The events in drama films are always true.
- ------ Perhaps the popularity of films on DVDs made cinemas less popular.
- ------ Newspaper editors do not always tell us the truth.
================================================= Skill: Drawing inferences Short text level The following item was quoted from: Stanley, Nancy.(1984), The Best TOEFL Test Book, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading, Massachchusetts,USA. Read the texts below and answer the questions that follow. Your answers should be based on the texts. "Los Angeles, host of the 1932 and 1984 Olympics, was founded in 1781, though the oldest house still standing in the city goes back to only 1818. Unlike San Francisco, it was mainly settled by people who traversed the United states by land. It may be inferred from the text that: a. The early settlers of San Francisco reached it by land. b. No houses were built in Los Angeles between 1781 and 1818. c. A few buildings in Los Angeles are more than 200 years old. d. There are no eighteenth-century buildings in Los Angeles." Skill: Drawing inferences Short text level What makes this a joke? 'An estate agent's assistant, whose job was to write advertisements for houses for sale, wrote a proposal of marriage to the girl in the office upstaires, -O Eth.wi.y.mry.me? Lf.wd.be.wrthls.wtht.y.' a. He has mis-spelled it all. b. He has used the spellings for advertisements for an unusual purpose. c. He could easily have spoken to her. d. He must be illiterate. Skill: Drawing Conclusions Short text level The following item was quoted from: Stanley, Nancy.(1984), The Best TOEFL Test Book, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading, Massachchusetts,USA. Read the paragraph below, then write Reasonable or Not Reasonable on the space before each statement. Fadi walked quickly into the living room as he entered the house. He could hardly see anything. No one was there, but he felt the presence of someone else. As he reached for the phone to call the police, the room lit up and voices shouted, "Surprise!" a. -------------- Someone is committing a burglary. b. -------------- Someone is moving into a new house. c. -------------- Someone is giving a party. d. -------------- The lights are off as the story begins. e. -------------- The phone isn't working. ============================================== Skill: Drawing inferences Short text level "Recent research into whether people who are good at solving brain twisters are more intelligent than those who are not suggests that the "experts" make use of a special type of insight. However, not only do they appear to be good at this (choosing which elements to process, to combine or to compare from the information given), but they are clever at making use of " general" or prior knowledge and at monitoring their own progress with a particular problem. In addition, they appear capable of adopting an appropriate cognitive style consisting of a combination of impulse and reflection. Just what this combination is still mystifies the researchers, and so does the original question, to which their answer is a somewhat frustrating "possibly'. What is the best title for this text? a. The Nature of Intelligence b. Are Brain Twisters Tests of Intelligence? Doubt Stays c. Brain Twisters; How Everyone Can Solve Them d. The Cognitive Style of Brain-Twister Writers Which of the following may not be inferred from the text? - Experts at brain twisters use different talents from non-experts
- There are several factors affecting success with brain twisters.
- Both impulsive and reflective thinking play a role in soving brain twisters.
- The researchers were frustrated by brain twisters
- What does the author seem to feel about the research?
a. Selectively interested b. Interested but in partial agreement c. Interested but somewhat dissatisfied d. Interested but completely puzzled" Skill: Checking validity of claims Text level The following item was quoted from: Phillips, Terry et al, (1996), AMRA: Advanced English (Language), Student's Book. Ministry of Education, Amman, Jordan. Text 1 The folowing text is an advertisement. Where is your car NOW? With CAR FINDER you’ll always know-even when it’s stolen! Car theft is rising in Britain. Park your car somewhere and when you come back, it’s gone. You’re not even safe parking outside your own house. Do you know where your car is now? Are you sure? Now comes CAR FINDER -- the latest invention which ensures that you know where your car is every minute of the day. It finds your car quickly, so it’s more likely that it will come back in one piece! And you won’t have to spend a fortune on hiring cars either. CAR FINDER, endorsed by the police and promoted by the British Car Club, is the 21st-century solution to a growing problem of the 1990s. It is based on a system which has already proven effective in Japan, where police reports show that 96% of all stolen cars fitted with this system were recoverd-- many of them in under an hour. And an added bonus--Japanese police say they caught the thieves with the car in 33% of cases-- ten times the national average. The powerful transmitter enables the police to pinpoint your car anywhere within a 200-mile radius of London – even when hidden in a garage. But my car’s insured, you say. Why do I need to worry? Ask some of the victims who have had their cars stolen. There’re thousands of them about! Firstly, you may wait weeks--sometimes months--to get the insurance money. In the meantime, you must hire a car or rely on public transport. And, what's more, when you get the money, it may not cover what you think the car was worth. Or, perhaps worst of all you may finally get the car back, badly damaged. With CAR FINDER you have peace of mind. Wherever you leave the car, the hidden transmitter is protecting it. And because of this extra protection, most major insurance companies offer discounts to owners of CAR FINDER—sometimes as much as 20%. Recovery can be expensive, so we offer a special recovery insurance which covers all the costs involved. And if you belong to BCC, you are entitled to free recovery as soon as the police have completed their inspection of the car. Well, a sophisticated system like this is not cheap, of course. But the expense is well worth it—especially when compared with the cost of a good car alarm system, which can, in most cases, be disabled in seconds by professional thieves. You must have seen one of those films where James Bond—or whoever—is following the villain's car from a distance by looking at a small radar screen. Well, CAR FINDER works like that. A hidden transmitter sealed into the body of the car is activated when the car is stolen. It immediately begins to send a powerful signal which can be picked up on police in-car computers. The police can track your vehicle from the moment it is taken. The transmitter goes on working for up to one month. All you have to do is call the number below and we will advise you of the nearest installer. He will call and give you a quote for fitting the device to your vehicle. And he can usually arrange fitting within a week. For more details, phone now, free on 0800 12 34 56, quouting ref. no 81. Alternatively, write to CAR FINDER, Freepost (AB12), Newtown, Hants, RG2 3AD. Text 2 This is an article from a UK consumer magazine about crime. Tracking down car thieves Theft from cars and theft of cars is a serious problem world-wide. Overall, Britain has a very bad record on car crime—the worst in Europe in fact. An epidemic, the British police have called it. Theft of cars was up 2% in England and Wales last year and in 1993 nearly 600,000 cars were stolen—one every 52 seconds. Recorded theft of property from cars fell by 4% over the same period, but, says the Home Office, this is misleading as only one in three thefts is actually reported. It is likely therefore that this is also rising. A new device on the market claims to be a breakthrough in the fight against car crime. It is an electronic tracker – a new, high-tech way of recovering stolen cars. At around 400 dollars, the device costs considerably more than the most expensive car alarm. The company which makes the device claims the system is endorsed by the police, although the Home Office refused to confirm this. Although said to be promoters of the device, the British Car Club would only say that anything which assisted in the fight against car crime must be a good thing. It is claimed that the police can trace your car wherever it is hidden within 200 miles of London – hard luck if you live in Glasgow – with receivers fitted to their cars. But policemen we spoke to said few cars were equipped as yet and one said he doubted if signals would reach low-lying parts of the country which couldn't even pick up BBC radio programmes yet! Statistics from Japan are impressive, however. There the homing device would appear to have made a dramatic impact on recovery and arrest rates. But British insurance companies are wary. Although some give discounts for factory-fitted car alarms, we did not find any willing to give a discount for this system. As one insurer said: " This does not stop the car being stolen in the first place. Many stolen cars are damaged or written off within minutes of being stolen. We prefer better methods of preventing criminals breaking into cars and then better ways of immobilizing them so they can't be driven away." a. Advertisements always stress the advantages of their products. That's why information in advertisements must be evaluated. Is it accurate? Identify unsupported claims in Text 1. Car Finder is endorsed------------. ----------------------------------. b. Do the 'facts' from the advertisement in Text 1 check out? Find out sentences or phrases in Text 2 that are related to the claims in Text 1 . ----------" the Home Office refused to confirm this." -----------------------------------------------------------. ======================================== Critical Reading Critical reading questions generally ask for the following kinds of information: 1. the main idea of the passage. 2. the author’s opinion or point of view. 3. A definition of vocabulary in context. 4. An inference from content or tone. 5. Referential questions 6. Inferential questions 7. Use of cohesive devices 8. The writer's attitude 9. An interpretation of words or concepts. 10. In the case of more than one text, a comparison or contrast of material. Samples: Critical reading questions generally ask for the following kinds of information: 1. the main idea of the passage. 2. the author’s opinion or point of view. 3. A definition of vocabulary in context. 4. An inference from content or tone. 5. Referential questions 6. Inferential questions 7. Use of cohesive devices 8. The writer's attitude 9. An interpretation of words or concepts. 10. In the case of more than one text, a comparison or contrast of material. Samples: Skill: Identifying form/function of structure words Sentence level Draw a line under the word since when it means as and two lines when it means from time to time in the following sentences: a. He couldn't come out since he was doing his homework. b. Since I last saw you I have got a new job. c. Since Jane was the eldest, she looked after the others. References Phillips, Terry et al, (1996), AMRA: Advanced English (Language), Student's Book. Ministry of Education, Amman, Jordan. Stanley, Nancy.(1984), The Best TOEFL Test Book, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading, Massachchusetts,USA ================================================= |