CCTST Explanation Skills 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A student gives this explanation for a historical event: 'World War I started because Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated.' A critical thinker would note this explanation is:
- Completely accurate and sufficient
- A proximate cause that omits the deeper structural and political factors (Correct answer)
- Irrelevant to understanding the war
- Too technical for a general audience
Correct answer: A proximate cause that omits the deeper structural and political factors
The assassination was a trigger but not the full explanation; a complete account also addresses the underlying alliances, nationalism, and militarism that made war likely.
Question 2: Which of the following best represents the skill of 'identifying assumptions' within an explanation?
- Restating the conclusion in the introduction
- Recognizing unstated premises the explanation relies on to be logically valid (Correct answer)
- Listing every fact mentioned in the explanation
- Summarizing the explanation at the end
Correct answer: Recognizing unstated premises the explanation relies on to be logically valid
Identifying assumptions means surfacing the unstated premises that must be true for the explanation's reasoning to hold.
Question 3: A financial analyst explains a stock market decline by citing three independent data sources that all point to the same cause. This approach strengthens the explanation because:
- More sources always mean more complexity
- Convergent evidence from independent sources reduces the chance the conclusion rests on a single flawed source (Correct answer)
- Using three sources is required by professional standards
- Independent sources disagree more often, which adds credibility
Correct answer: Convergent evidence from independent sources reduces the chance the conclusion rests on a single flawed source
When multiple independent lines of evidence converge on the same explanation, the probability that the conclusion is due to a single flawed source is greatly reduced.
Question 4: An engineer presents an explanation of why a bridge failed but does not address a competing explanation that has been publicly proposed. This omission is a problem because:
- It makes the explanation too short
- A complete explanation should acknowledge and respond to credible alternative accounts (Correct answer)
- Competing explanations are always wrong and do not need addressing
- The audience does not know about the alternative
Correct answer: A complete explanation should acknowledge and respond to credible alternative accounts
Ignoring a credible alternative explanation leaves the reasoning incomplete and fails to demonstrate that the presented explanation is superior.
Question 5: Which of the following is NOT a component of 'explanation' as defined by the CCTST framework?
- Stating results
- Justifying procedures
- Presenting arguments
- Predicting future emotional responses of the audience (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Predicting future emotional responses of the audience
The CCTST defines explanation as encompassing stating results, justifying procedures, and presenting arguments — predicting audience emotional responses is not part of this skill.
Question 6: A lawyer summarizes evidence for the jury by grouping facts thematically and connecting each group explicitly to the legal standard at issue. This is effective explanation primarily because:
- It uses legal jargon the jury is unfamiliar with
- It organizes evidence into a coherent structure that maps directly onto the criteria being applied (Correct answer)
- It repeats each fact multiple times for memorability
- It avoids mentioning the opposing side's evidence
Correct answer: It organizes evidence into a coherent structure that maps directly onto the criteria being applied
Organizing evidence thematically and linking it to relevant criteria demonstrates structured, audience-aware explanation that makes the reasoning easy to follow.
Question 7: When a critical thinker is asked to 'explain her reasoning,' the most appropriate response is to:
- Restate the conclusion more forcefully
- Describe what evidence was considered, what inferences were drawn, and why the conclusion follows (Correct answer)
- Express confidence that she is correct without detailing the steps
- Ask the questioner to accept the conclusion on trust
Correct answer: Describe what evidence was considered, what inferences were drawn, and why the conclusion follows
Explaining reasoning means making the evidential basis and inferential steps transparent so others can evaluate the logic independently.
CCTST Explanation Skills 5
A student gives this explanation for a historical event: 'World War I started because Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated.' A critical thinker would note this explanation is: