logic and critical thinking freshman course questions and answers pdf

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Logics and Critical Thinking Module - Questions and Answers

What is critical thinking and what critical thinking is not? Critical Thinking means the way how someone thinks rationally and critically analyze a problem before deciding something. To accept an information without analyzing and rationally filtering it is not a Critical Thinking.

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The relations between Chinese Indonesians and Indonesians are unequivocally complicated, and vary according to global & local contexts. For decades, the Chinese Indonesians and Indonesians relations have been very fragile. Ethnic tension had evidently reached its peak in 1998 and soon after that, many anti-Chinese riots took place in several cities, including Medan, the capital of North Sumatra, Indonesia. This incident has unquestionably given an indelible memory of trauma and instability to the Chinese Indonesians. In the Post-Suharto, the new regime has paved way to some degree of democratization and multiculturalism. These have given rise to ethnic freedom as well as allow the Chinese Indonesians to celebrate their culture and participate in politics through their transnational Chinese networks and Chinese organizations. The research draws on fieldwork in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia has found despite the end of the riot, the conflict between the Chinese Indonesians and Indonesians assuredly presents in Medan. The ethnic relations among differing groups in this particular area have not been slowly improved. The research hence critically consider on the changes of the interethnic relations between Medan Chinese-Pribumi Indonesians after 1998 and aims to describe and analyze the considerable challenges in their relations, namely history of Chinese exclusion and plural monoculturalism. Keywords: ethnic relations, multiculturalism, plural monoculturalism, Medan, post-Suharto Indonesia

Open textbook, 2016

An intro level text covering the basics of reasoning and argumentation, including some basic formal logic, and targeted at beginning undergraduates. I wrote it for a course I taught at Lansing Community College that covered both logic and critical thinking. It is an "open textbook" under a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Abstract The study classified individual items that function differentially according to the magnitude of DIF in dichotomous and ordinal tests and compared the power of Generalized Mantel Haenszel (GMH), Simultaneous Item Bias Test (SIBTEST), and Logistic Discriminant Function Analysis (LDFA) methods in detecting DIF in dichotomous and ordinal test items. It also determined the relationship between the proportion of test items that function differentially in dichotomous and ordinal tests when the different methods were used. These were with a view to improving the quality of dichotomous and ordinal test items construction. The study adopted a survey design. The population consisted of all undergraduate students who registered for EFC 303 (Tests and Measurement) at Obafemi Awolowo University during 2011/2012 Harmattan Semester . The sample consisted of an intact class of 457 Part 3 undergraduate students who registered for the course. Two research instruments were used to collect data. They were “Undergraduate Students’ Achievement Test” (USAT) and “Teacher Efficacy Scale” (TES). The USAT consisted of 50, four-option multiple-choice items developed by the course lecturers based on the course content. The TES was a 24-item Likert scale designed by Faleye (2008) to measure the efficacy of teachers’ activities. A total of 445 scripts were found properly completed. Data collected were analysed using Generalized Mantel Haenszel, Simultaneous Item Bias Test, and Logistic Discriminant Function Analysis. The results showed that in dichotomous test, GMH classified items 2, 5, 6, 11, and 21 as negligible DIF (A-level), items 29, 30, 40, 41, and 42 as moderate (B-level) DIF, items 44, 48, and 49 as large (C-level) DIF. Also, LDFA classified items 1, 4, 9, 10, 12, 22, 24, and 25 as negligible (A-level) DIF. Further, SIBTEST classified items 3, 7, 13, 15, and 18 as negligible (A- level) DIF, items 26, 27, 28, and 32 as moderate (B-level) DIF, and items 43, 45, and 46 as large (C-level) DIF. In contrast, for the ordinal test, the GMH classified items 3, 4, 7, 8, and 11 as negligible (A-level) DIF, items 23 and 24 as large (C-level) DIF. Further, LDFA classified items 6, 9, 10, 13, and 14 as negligible (A-level) DIF, items 20 and 21 as moderate (B-level) DIF, and item 22 as large (C-level) DIF. Similarly, SIBTEST classified items 5, 12, and 15 as negligible (A-level) DIF. The results further showed that there was a significant difference in the performance of the GMH, SIBTEST, and LDFA methods in detecting DIF in dichotomous test items (Wald χ2 (1, N = 445) = 87.80, p<.05). Also, the results showed that there was a significant difference in the performance of GMH, SIBTEST, and LDFA methods in detecting DIF in ordinal test items (Wald χ2 (1, N = 445) = 55.28, p<.05). Finally, the results showed that there was no significant relationship between the proportion of test items that functioned differentially in the dichotomous and ordinal tests when the different methods were used (χ2 = 0.98, p>0.05). The study concluded that GMH, SIBTEST and LDFA were effective in detecting DIF across dichotomous test items but complement one other in their ability to detect DIF in ordinal test items.

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Logical Reasoning

Bradley H. Dowden, California State University Sacramento

Copyright Year: 2017

Publisher: Bradley H. Dowden

Language: English

Formats Available

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Reviewed by Matt Carlson, Assistant Professor, Wabash College on 8/6/19

This book takes a "kitchen sink" approach to the material that might be taught in a standard critical thinking course. There is far more material here than could be taught in one semester. The good news, though, is that the chapters are, for the... read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

This book takes a "kitchen sink" approach to the material that might be taught in a standard critical thinking course. There is far more material here than could be taught in one semester. The good news, though, is that the chapters are, for the most part, independent of one another, so the book could be used in a relatively modular way.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

Generally good, but I found the use of 'logic' and its cognates to be a little confusing at times. If anything, this book is really about applied epistemology more than logic. That by itself isn't a criticism; it should just be called what it is. But this does introduce some problems in the sections more specifically about logic. The definition of deductive validity and implication, for example, are given in terms of certainty. The author warns against interpreting 'certainty' psychologically, but gives no clue as how to how it might be meant in a logical sense. It follows from this definition that it is possible to have P,Q such that Q "follows from P with certainty" but Q is not certain. I know what is meant by this because I already have background in logic, but I think students will be confused.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

A bit of a mixed bag here. I really liked the added section on "Fake News and Misinformation". I haven't seen that in a critical thinking book before, and I thought it was a valuable addition that was clearly informed by current research. I would have appreciated more guidance as to how to judge whether a source is reliable. Of course this is a hard problem (see Goldman's classic "Experts" paper), but the book just gave us a short list of reliable sources. Surely critical thinkers will ask: "But why are *those* sources reliable?"

Clarity rating: 3

The book is generally readable. But it introduces many, many distinctions and new pieces of terminology. Almost all of them are briefly explained when they are introduced, but the sheer number of terms and distinctions is difficult to keep track of. I found this to be a problem in the exercises in particular. Many of the exercises require students to employ the fine distinctions given in the text, but they haven't really been given much guidance (typically, just one example per term is given) as to how to apply those distinctions. As these are a little idiosyncratic in places, I admit that I sometimes had a hard time discerning what the intended "right answer" was supposed to be.

Consistency rating: 4

The book is generally consistent, or at least as consistent as it can be given the "kitchen-sink" approach to content that it employs.

Modularity rating: 5

See above remarks. One virtue of this text is its modularity.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

Generally good, though I found it a little strange that topics in logic (e.g. deductive validity) were briefly introduced early on, and then discussed in much more detail only in later chapters.

Interface rating: 5

Generally good.

Grammatical Errors rating: 4

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

I appreciated the wide variety of examples given.

As I said above, I think 'logical' in the title, "Logical Reasoning" is a misnomer. This is, for the most part, a book in applied epistemology and philosophy of science. And I think it generally does well in those areas. If one wants a book in logic, there are better open access choices; specifically works in the Open Logic Project, which I cannot recommend highly enough.

On an unrelated note, I found the sections on inductive reasoning somewhat confusing. I'm not sure how helpful it is to discuss inductive/statistical reasoning without requiring the student to do any mathematics. I suppose it is helpful for the student to be aware of pitfalls in statistical reasoning---and the book is helpful here---but students reading this book would have a hard time applying what that they learned about e.g. statistical significance to new cases, I think.

Table of Contents

• Chapter 1 How to Reason Logically
• Chapter 2 Claims, Issues, and Arguments
• Chapter 3 Writing with the Appropriate Precision
• Chapter 4 How to Evaluate Information and Judge Credibility
• Chapter 5 Obstacles to Better Communication
• Chapter 6 Writing to Convince Others
• Chapter 7 Defending Against Deception
• Chapter 8 Detecting Fallacies
• Chapter 9 Consistency and Inconsistency
• Chapter 10 Deductive Reasoning
• Chapter 11 Logical Form and Sentential Logic
• Chapter 12 Aristotelian Logic and Venn-Euler Diagrams
• Chapter 13 Inductive Reasoning
• Chapter 14 Reasoning about Causes and Their Effects
• Chapter 15 Scientific Reasoning

Ancillary Material

About the book.

The goal of this book is to improve your logical-reasoning skills. These skills are also called "critical thinking skills." They are a complex weave of abilities that help you get someone's point, generate reasons for your own point, evaluate the reasons given by others, decide what or what not to do, decide what information to accept or reject, explain a complicated idea, apply conscious quality control as you think, and resist propaganda. Your most important critical thinking skill is your skill at making judgments─not snap judgments that occur in the blink of an eye, but those that require careful reasoning.

This book is also available as an adaptable Word file .

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