CRITICAL THINKING SAMPLE TEST #1

Part I -- Conceptual, Empirical, Evaluative

For each sentence, indicate if the claim being made is conceptual, empirical, or evaluative. [17 claims, 1 points per claim, 17 points total]

That would be excellent.

Most of the mail I get is bills.

A file is a collection of related data stored on some input-output device.

Black tea has a much longer shelf life than green tea.

Scholars dispute which language has the most words.

She never signed the contract.

Nothing can be both a frog and a fish.

This was the noblest Roman of them all.

That oven doesn't get hot enough to melt sand.

If the camera can only view 340, then it has a blind spot.

Hoping that something will occur doesn't require believing that it will.

The purpose of government is to secure the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes.

When a long train of abuses and usurpations pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce a people under absolute despotism, then it is the right of the people, it is their duty, to throw off such government and to provide new grounds for their future security.

The king has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

The series started off well but failed in the end to tie up its plot lines in a satisfying way.

According to the sample test, part one is going to have seventeen claims that you'll be asked to sort.

Part II -- Supported, Unsupported, Explicit, Implicit

Read each argument. Then, for each sentence in italics, answer the following two questions:

Does the claim function in the argument as an unsupported premise, a supported premise, the

conclusion of the argument (the final conclusion), or as neither premise nor conclusion (NPNC)?

Is the claim being made explicitly, implicitly (an unstated part of the argument), or not at all?

[17 claims, 2 points per claim, 34 points total.]

In spite of the heat, the days are getting shorter. And the earlier the sun sets, the closer we are to the winter solstice. This evening, July 30, the sun set in Pensacola, Florida at 7:44 PM. But here in Hays -- same time zone -- it set at 8:14 PM. So this year, winter will come earlier to Pensacola than to Hays.

The sun set tonight earlier in Pensacola than in Hays.

Winter will come to Pensacola this year before it comes to Hays.

The days are getting shorter.

The earlier the sun sets, the closer we are to the winter solstice.

"The evidence used to claim that the arts boost academic performance is based on numerous correlational studies. But as everyone knows, we cannot infer causality from correlation. . . . An examination of the relationship between arts study and academic achievement in other countries proves extremely instructive and casts doubt on all of the American hoopla. In the Netherlands, students who take arts electives in high school attain the same educational level as those with no arts electives. [citation provided] This study, which controlled for students' socioeconomic status, shows that in the Netherlands, taking the arts in high school does not predict ultimate educational level attained. Most tellingly, in the UK, the more arts courses taken in high school, the poorer the performance on national exams at the end of secondary school. [citation provided] The authors explained this finding by noting that in the UK, the only students who are permitted to prepare for more than one arts subject for their secondary school exams are those who choose an arts over an academic track (making it likely that many who choose this track will be academically weak). Academically weak students in the United States are steered into remedial academic courses, not into the arts." (Ellen Winner)

There is reason to doubt that taking arts courses makes a person more successful in non-arts academic subjects.

There is no significant correlation for high school students in the Netherlands between taking arts electives and achieving high levels of education.

In general, the more arts courses a person takes in school, the poorer they do in academic subjects.

Can someone knowingly and voluntarily choose to do evil? Doing something voluntarily means doing what the person acting considers good. And nothing known by a person to be evil seems to them good. So no one voluntarily pursues what they know is evil. But people clearly do evil things. These people therefore must be ignorant of what is good.

To do something voluntarily is to do what appears to the person to be good.

Some people are evil.

If someone knows something is evil, they won't voluntarily do it.

People who do evil things are ignorant of what is good.

Democracy is obviously no way to run a family. Parents should be obeyed, for they are wiser than their children about what is in the family's best interest. Similarly, democracy is no way to run a nation. The people should follow their leaders, and stop pretending to be able to instruct them.

Families should not be governed democratically.

Parents are wiser than their children about what's best for their family.

A nation is more harmonious the more obedient its people are.

The role of leader in a nation is similar to that of a parent in a family.

5. Taxing the rich to pay for programs that help the poor and middle class, or on things like infrastructure or national defense which benefit all Americans, makes good economic sense. Whereas money allocated to programs such as affordable healthcare, Pell grants, food stamps, and Earned Income Tax Credit, or given to working-class and middle-class Americans through tax cuts, generally goes into the economy and stimulates growth, tax hikes on the rich have little impact on their spending, since most of this income ends up in savings. History bears this out. President Clinton raised the top marginal income tax rate from 31% to 39.6% and saw GDP growth top 4% every year in his second term. President George W. Bush's tax cuts were supposed to accelerate growth; instead, they led to unimpressive growth and eventually recession.

When rich people get a tax cut, they tend not to spend the money that would have gone to taxes, but to save it.

GDP growth is an indicator that an economy is doing well.

Part III -- Categorical Propositions

For each of the following propositions, (a) symbolize the subject and predicate classes, (b) rewrite the proposition in standard categorical form, and (c) indicate any distributed terms with asterisks. [10 propositions, 4 points per proposition, 40 points total]

Nearly all fiddlers nowadays play on an instrument pretty much like those perfected in Cremona in the early eighteenth century.

()= ()= proposition symbolized:

Few trees are as long-lived as the olive. ()=

()=

proposition symbolized:

Kermit is a frog.

()= ()= proposition symbolized:

Not a single juror voiced a dissenting opinion. ()=

()=

proposition symbolized:

A toilet seat is a going to be expensive if it is made of solid gold.

()= ()= proposition symbolized:

Only people who are at least 18 years old can vote in the election. ()=

()=

proposition symbolized:

Where there is smoke there is fire.

()= ()= proposition symbolized:

Bats aren't bugs. ()=

()=

proposition symbolized:

President Garfield died of complications from a gunshot wound.

()= ()= proposition symbolized:

There are many immoral things that are not illegal. ()=

()= proposition symbolized:

Part IV -- Equivalence

For each of the following categorical propositions in symbolic form, indicate its three equivalent forms. No need to mark distribution on this section of the exam. [3 propositions, 3 points each, 9 points total]

All (non-x) are (y)

Some (y) are (non-x)

No (x) are (y)