Critical Thinking Terms A - C

Question 1

Free from errors, mistakes, or distortion. Implies a positive exercise to obtain conformity with fact or truth.

Answer 1

ACCURATE

Question 2

Having two or more possible meanings. Is a problem more of sentences than of individual words.

Answer 2

AMBIGUOUS

Question 3

To break up a whole into its parts; to examine in detail so as to determine the nature of; to look more deeply into an issue or a situation.

Answer 3

ANALYZE

Question 4

(1) To engage in a quarrel; bicker;

(2) to persuade by giving reasons.

Answer 4

ARGUE

Question 5

A reason or reasons offered for or against something; the offering of such reasons; a discussion in which there is disagreement, suggesting using logic and bringing forth facts to support or refute a point.

Answer 5

ARGUMENT

Question 6

Take for granted or presuppose. Critical thinkers make their assumptions explicit, assess them, and correct them.

Answer 6

ASSUME

Question 7

A statement accepted or supposed as true without proof or demonstration; an unstated premise or belief. Our thought must begin with something we take to be true in a given context.

Answer 7

ASSUMPTION

Question 8

(1) The power or supposed right to give commands, enforce obedience, take action, or make final decisions; (2) a person with much knowledge and expertise in a field, and hence reliable.

Answer 8

AUTHORITY

Question 9

(1) A mental leaning or inclination;

(2) partiality, prejudice.

Answer 9

BIAS

Question 10

To make easier to understand, to free from confusion or ambiguity, to remove obscurities.

a fundamental perfection of thought, and a fundamental aim in critical thinking.

Answer 10

CLARIFY, Clarity

Question 11

An idea or thought. especially a generalized idea of a thing or of a class of things.

Answer 11

CONCEPT

Question 12

To decide by reasoning, to infer, to deduce; the last step in a reasoning process; a judgment, decision, or belief formed after investigation or reasoning.

Answer 12

CONCLUDE/CONCLUSION

Question 13

Thinking, acting, or speaking that is in agreement with what has been thought, done, or expressed already; intellectual or moral integrity.

Answer 13

CONSISTENCY

Question 14

To assert the opposite of; to be contrary to, go against; a statement in opposition to another; a condition in which things tend to be contrary to each other; inconsistency; discrepancy; a person or thing containing or composed of contradictory elements.

Answer 14

CONTRADICT/CONTRADICTION

Question 15

A standard, rule, or test by which something can be judged or measured.

Answer 15

CRITERION (CRITERIA, PL)

Question 16

A mode of monitoring how we are listening to maximize our accurate understanding of what another person is saying.

Answer 16

CRITICAL LISTENING

Question 17

One who has mastered a range of intellectual skills and abilities.

Answer 17

CRITICAL PERSON

Question 18

An active, intellectually engaged process in which the reader participates in an inner dialogue with the writer.

Answer 18

CRITICAL READING

Question 19

A culture that rewards adherence to the values of critical thinking and hence does not use indoctrination and inculcation as basic modes of learning.

Answer 19

CRITICAL SOCIETY

Question 20

(1) Disciplined, self-directed thinking that exemplifies the perfections of thinking appropriate to a specific mode or domain of thinking;
(2) thinking that displays mastery of intellectual skills and abilities;
(3) the art of thinking about one’s thinking while thinking, to make one’s thinking better: more clear, more accurate, or more defensible;
(4) thinking that is fully aware of, and continually guards against, the natural human tendency to self-deceive and rationalize to selfishly get what it wants.

Answer 20

CRITICAL THINKING

Question 21

Expressing ourselves in written language by arranging our ideas in some relationship to each other.

Answer 21

CRITICAL WRITING

Question 22

An objective judging, analysis, or evaluation of something.

Answer 22

CRITIQUE

Question 23

A personal and cultural idea about relationships and linkages absorbed or formed uncritically.

Answer 23

CULTURAL ASSOCIATION

Question 24

An unassessed, often implicit, belief adopted by virtue of upbringing in a society.

Answer 24

CULTURAL ASSUMPTION