AS Critical Thinking question

[eatyourveg]

ds1's whole year have been entered into this exam and he sits it in a fortnight. He says you don't revise.

Is it one of those skills then that you either have or you don't?

Maybe... wouldn't it be the sort of thing you could/should practice?

DD1 did this for AS too, and she says all she did was read through all the notes she made and the practice questions they did in class. She says you just need to have a clear logical head on in the exam and it's a piece of cake. She got an A, as did the majority of her friends who took it.

IIRC it involves ethical thinking/basic logic dilemmas. Disclaimer: I didn't sit the exam, we were forced to take lessons at the local private school as 'Oxbridge prep' and this was seven years ago.

We were told it was the thinking person's General Studies and I sat that exam without even knowing what the paper was going to look like and got an A at AS (the only student in my year not to attend classes and the only one with an A... make up your minds as to the validity of that qualification /hijack).

He should definitely know exam technique - how to answer essay questions etc., as a substantial part of AS exams (and I don't think they've changed that much) is prescriptive answering so you answer a question with 'Point, Quotation, Explanation'/'intro+2 positive points+2 negative points+conclusion' etc. Formulaic answers tend to get you a B and original thought thrown in gets you A (and I suppose A* nowadays ).

You do revise, and you practise. But only if you are a swot.

cheers folks

You don't revise for General Studies.
You do revise for Critical Thinking (even if it's only reading through some definitions). If there's a textbook all about it- there's something worth reading through in there :o
The people I know of who took the exam got Cs and Bs (at an academic, high performing sixth form) because they thought it was just like GS.

I teach this - what exam board are you doing - OCR or AQA? There is a difference in style of questions and the prescriptive nature of the respective mark schemes.

Tbh, I would revise as despite it being critical thinking, OCR in particular is very prescriptive in the way they answer - they do at least need to know how to answer the questions. Also, ensure they know the technical things like the names of the 40 fallacies they need to know, the 4 criteria for judging analogies and so on...

Interestingly, at work we have a chart which was published (not sure by whom, but I know it in part used the 2008 Score report) which ranked the difficulty of the different 'A' level subjects. Critical Thinking has traditionally been dismissed as a bit of a dossy subject, but this report said that actually it is quite difficult to pass and statistically students are more likely to fail this than other courses (although I do accept that the score report is flawed). Indeed, if you're planning on studying philosophy at Oxford Uni, they actually say Critical Thinking may provide better preparation for their degree than doing philosophy 'A' level.

However, I do also think there is an element that bright students often naturally click with the subject quite easily, but weaker students REALLY struggle with it. That's just my experience though!

Both OCR and AQA do books which give you the basics. Otherwise, John Butterworth has a critical thinking book which is quite good. HTH

Oh no! I don't know which board it is and looking at the board timetables they are both holding their exams at the same time so I can't work it out from that. ds1 doesn't know.

He has however given us advanced warning that he is not going to do very well. He didn't do too well in his mock. I looked at TSR and found the mnemonics CRAVEN and A PRATT CAN PASS which related to credibility and flaws which I assume is something to do with how to write a credible report/argument but I had no idea what ad hominem and tu quoque and strawmen had to do with anything. Are these the 40 fallacies you mentioned?

They didn't get text books. It was all rather a last minute thing back in September when school announced that they were introducing the subject for all the lower 6th. This is the first year they've run it

If your son has studied CRAVEN, then the exam board is OCR. AQA does not include that.

Ad hominem, tu quoque and straw man are indeed types of fallacies. He should know these by name, along with the other main ones. I think the ones you mention are some of the main fallacies that OCR use as well as slippery slope, begging the question / circular argument and confusing necessary and sufficient conditions. He should also know the main appeals - tradition, popularity, expertise etc etc. The exam paper usually contains at least two or three of these that he will be expected to find and either name or describe.

The key advice I would give (with OCR in particular) is to make sure he knows how to answer the questions. Get hold of some past exam questions and paper and look out for the types of things they want. OCR are quite specific in their mark schemes and students often lose a lot of marks by not answering the questions correctly. Sorry, I don't actually have any past papers any more as we now teach AQA. If the exam is the same time as AQA, then it should be next friday - so he's got a week. If you need anything else, let me know.

He hasn't studied craven - I found it for him on TSR under critical thinking revision as he had nothing to revise from. When I gave it to him he didn't know what it was - He hadn't heard of any of it. I assume then he's doing AQA but worried now that you say the Latin stuff would come up with both boards

The exam is next friday and then June 7th

Will look at AQA mark scheme and email school for a revision crib sheet if such a thing exists - thanks for the tip

If its AQA, I can give you a copy of some of our stuff. I also have mark schemes / papers etc that I can give. Private message me if you want it. .

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