PTA Critical Thinking 1 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: What is the difference between fact and opinion?
- Facts can be verified with evidence; opinions express personal beliefs or judgments (Correct answer)
- All statements in textbooks are facts
- Opinions are always wrong
- Facts and opinions are the same
Correct answer: Facts can be verified with evidence; opinions express personal beliefs or judgments
Facts are objective statements that can be proven true or false with evidence, while opinions are subjective expressions of belief, preference, or judgment.
Question 2: What is a logical fallacy?
- An error in reasoning that undermines the logic of an argument (Correct answer)
- A false fact
- A type of mathematical error
- A grammatical mistake
Correct answer: An error in reasoning that undermines the logic of an argument
Logical fallacies are flaws in reasoning that make arguments invalid, such as ad hominem attacks, straw man arguments, and false dichotomies.
Question 3: What is the difference between correlation and causation?
- Correlation shows two things are related; causation proves one directly causes the other (Correct answer)
- They mean the same thing
- Correlation is stronger than causation
- Causation does not require evidence
Correct answer: Correlation shows two things are related; causation proves one directly causes the other
Correlation indicates a statistical relationship between variables, but causation requires evidence that one variable directly produces a change in the other.
Question 4: What is an analogy in reasoning?
- A comparison between two things to explain or clarify an idea (Correct answer)
- A type of math problem
- A literary device only used in poetry
- A logical fallacy
Correct answer: A comparison between two things to explain or clarify an idea
Analogies compare two different things that share similar characteristics to help explain, clarify, or argue a point.
Question 5: What does it mean to evaluate a source's credibility?
- Assessing the author's expertise, the publication's reputation, and the evidence supporting claims (Correct answer)
- Checking if the source is recent
- Only looking at the source's length
- Credibility cannot be assessed
Correct answer: Assessing the author's expertise, the publication's reputation, and the evidence supporting claims
Evaluating credibility involves checking the author's qualifications, the publisher's reputation, the evidence provided, potential biases, and corroboration from other sources.
Question 6: What is bias in reasoning?
- A tendency to favor certain perspectives while overlooking others, which can distort conclusions (Correct answer)
- Having an opinion
- Being wrong about facts
- A type of statistical error
Correct answer: A tendency to favor certain perspectives while overlooking others, which can distort conclusions
Bias is a systematic tendency to favor particular outcomes, perspectives, or interpretations, which can affect how evidence is selected, interpreted, and presented.
PTA Critical Thinking 1
What is the difference between fact and opinion?