How the Critical Thinking test works
After a few unscored practice questions, you get one question per screen on a single 12-minute clock. Each question opens with a long instruction, often defining its own answer terms, so reading quickly is part of the challenge. The four skill areas are tested equally:
- Syllogisms: two premises to treat as fact, ignoring anything you know about the real world, and four conclusions. Pick the one that must follow.
- Statement pairs: a short paragraph and a second statement. Decide whether the second contradicts, supports, restates or is irrelevant to the first.
- Assumptions: a short argument and four statements. Pick the unstated assumption the argument depends on.
- Weighing arguments: an argument and a piece of data. Decide whether the data strengthens it, weakens it or has no effect.
How to answer each question type
Each type has a test you can apply in seconds:
- Syllogisms: sketch the premises as overlapping circles. A conclusion follows only if it is true in every drawing that fits both premises.
- Statement pairs: restates means the same claim, not just the same topic. Supports means it makes the first more likely without repeating it.
- Assumptions: use the negation test. Turn each option into its opposite; if the argument then falls apart, that option is the assumption.
- Weighing arguments: ask whether the data changes how likely the conclusion is. Data about something the argument never claims has no effect.
Worked examples
A syllogism. Premise 1: All site inspectors hold a safety certificate. Premise 2: Some contractors are site inspectors. Which conclusion follows? (a) All contractors hold a safety certificate. (b) Some contractors hold a safety certificate. (c) No contractors hold a safety certificate. (d) Everyone with a safety certificate is a site inspector.
The answer is (b). The contractors who are inspectors must hold a certificate, so at least some contractors do. Nothing is said about the other contractors, which rules out (a) and (c), and (d) turns premise 1 the wrong way round.
Weighing an argument. Argument: holding the weekly sales meeting on Monday mornings will raise sales, because staff start the week with clear targets. Data: one branch that moved its meeting to Monday saw sales rise over the next quarter while other branches stayed flat. Strengthen, weaken or no effect?
Strengthen. The data does not prove the argument, since something else could explain that branch’s rise, but it makes the conclusion more believable, and that is all strengthen means here.
Tips for the real Critical Thinking test
- Learn the answer terms now (contradicts, supports, restates, irrelevant; strengthen, weaken, has no effect) so you can skim the definitions on the day instead of reading them in full each time.
- Treat every premise as true, however odd it sounds. The instructions rule out your own knowledge.
- Watch the quantity words: all, some, no, only. Most wrong syllogism options change one of them.
- The number of questions is not published, so read the counter at the top of the first screen and set your pace from it.
- Guess rather than skip. A skip is marked wrong and a wrong answer costs nothing.
Practise Critical Thinking on CogniPrep
Ours has 12 questions in 12 minutes, three from each skill area, each with a defining instruction as TestGorilla writes them. The count of 12 is ours, because TestGorilla does not publish one. One question per screen, no going back and a skip marked wrong. Questions come from our bank of 60, and you finish with a raw percentage, a percentile against CogniPrep players with harder questions weighted more, and feedback on each skill area.