Critical thinking

Critical thinking is a domain-
general thinking skill. The ability
to think clearly and rationally is
important whatever we choose
to do.

It includes the ability to engage in reflective and
independent thinking.
Someone with critical thinking skills is able to do the
following :
• understand the logical connections between ideas
• identify, construct and evaluate arguments
• detect inconsistencies and common mistakes in reasoning
• solve problems systematically
• identify the relevance and importance of ideas
• reflect on the justification of one’s own beliefs and values

Critical thinking enhances language and
presentation skills. Thinking clearly and
systematically can improve the way we
express our ideas. In learning how to
analyse the logical structure of texts,
critical thinking also improves
comprehension abilities.

Critical thinking promotes creativity .To come
up with a creative solution to a problem involves
not just having new ideas. It must also be the
case that the new ideas being generated are
useful and relevant to the task at hand. Critical
thinking plays a crucial role in evaluating new
ideas, selecting the best ones and modifying
them if necessary.

How to Demonstrate
Your Critical
Thinking Skills

Critical thinking is a skill that students
develop gradually as they progress in
school. This skill becomes more
important in higher grades, but some
students find it difficult to understand the
concept of critical thinking.

Critical Thinking Activity 1:
Fact or Opinion

 My mom is the best mom on earth.
 My dad is taller than your dad.
 My telephone number is difficult to memorize.
 The deepest part of the ocean is 35,813 feet deep.
 Dogs make better pets than turtles.
 The Empire State Building in New York is bigger than The
Eiffel Tower in Paris.
 Eighty-five percent of all cases of lung cancer in the U.S. are
caused by smoking.
 One out of every one hundred American citizens is color blind.
 Two out of ten American citizens are boring.

Critical Thinking Activity 2:
Describing a picture

You are given one minute to look at a picture. After this time period,
answer the questions below. Picture 1
1. What is common for all? 2. Where are the people? 3. What age do the people belong to?

Picture 21. What is common for all? 2. Where are the people? 3. What age do the people belong to?

Picture 31. What is common for all? 2. Where are the people? 3. What age do the people belong to?

Riddles
require your critical
thinking
Critical Thinking Activity 3:

1. Question: A man and his son were in an automobile accident.
The man died on the way to the hospital, but the boy was rushed
into surgery. The emergency room surgeon said “I can’t operate,
that’s my son!” How is this possible?
2. Question: A man went outside in the pouring rain with no
protection, but not a hair on his head got wet. How come?
3. Question: Which one is correct? “Penguins flies” or “A
Penguin flies”

1. Question: How many sides does a circle have?
2. Question: Which letter of the English alphabet flies, sings,
and stings?
3. Question: What gets wetter and wetter the more it dries?

1. Question: What has a head and a tail, but no body?
2. Question: A man is standing in front of a picture of a boy.
He says: Brothers and sisters have I none, but this man's
father is my father's son.
Who can see the man in the picture?
3. Question: You have a match and you enter a wagon with a
candle, a lamp and a fireplace. Which one do you light first?

Numbers
•1. Cardinal numbers
•2. Ordinal numbers
•3. Fractions and decimals

Cardinal numbers
• 379= three hundred and seventy nine
2,860=two thousand eight hundred and sixty
5,084=five thousand and eighty four 470,000=four hundred
and seventy thousand
2,550,000=two million, five hundred and fifty thousand
3,000,000, 000=three billion
NOTE: There is no plural ‘s’ after hundred, thousand, million
and billion when they are part of a number. On their own,
they can be plural, e.g. thousands of people, millions of
insects

Ordinal numbers and dates
• One of the problems with dates is that we write them and say
them in a different way:
•
We write 4 January (or 4th January), but say the fourth of
January or January the fourth.
We write 21 May (or 21st May), but say the twenty-first of May or
May the twenty-first.
1997=nineteen ninety seven
1905=nineteen hundred and five or nineteen oh five
• 2020 = two thousand and twenty
• 2002 = two thousand and two

Fractions and decimals
• 1 ¼ = one and a quarter
1 ½ = one and a half
1 ¾ = one and three quarters
2/3 = two thirds
4/9 = four ninth
1.25= one point two five
1.5=one point five
1.75= one point seven five
1.33= one point three three

Money
• Currency symbols (€, £, $ etc) should be placed before the
number, with no space, like this:
He earned €30,000 last year (spoken – thirty-thousand euros).
$5 = five dollars
£99.99 = ninety-nine pounds ninety-nine pence
$198.1 billion– one hundred and ninety-eight point one billion
dollars.
Thousands should be separated by commas, like this:
€2,901 (spoken – two-thousand, nine-hundred and one euros).
• Decimals (cents, pennies etc) should be separated by a
dot/point/full-stop (whatever you want to call it), like this:
€12.99 (spoken – twelve euros, ninety nine cents – or just – twelve
ninety-nine).

Arithmetic
There are four basic processes for working out (=calculating) a problem:
= addition e.g. 6+4 = 10 (six plus/and four equals/ is ten)
= subtraction e.g. 6-3 = 2 (six minus four equals/is two)
= multiplication e.g. 6 4= 24 (six times/mulpitlied by four equals/is twenty-
four)
= division e.g. 4 2 = 2 (four divided by two equals/is two).

Percentages
26%=twenty –six per cent
More than 50% is the majority; less than 50% is the minority.
• Saying ‘ 0 ‘
This can be spoken in different ways in different contexts.
Telephone number: 603 724 = six oh three, seven two four ( AmEng
= six zero three)
mathematics: 0.7 = nought point seven, 6.02 = six point oh two
temperature: -10 degrees = ten degrees below zero / minus ten
degrees
football: 2-0 = two nil
tennis: 40-0 = forty love

Listening exercise

Hometask Exercises