When doing critical thinking questions, it is important to carefully read the information given, look carefully at any visual stimulus and apply rules consistently. Sometimes students can feel a bit overwhelmed, focus on being right rather than the process. If they can remember to be calm and look at all aspects of the question it will be helpful. They can then eliminate what does not fit the information in moving to selecting their response. When they do this they should be able to justify why each of the non-selected options were eliminated.

Try the sample question below.

About the author: Mohan Dhall is an experienced teacher and teacher-educator, author and educational manager. Trained in gifted education, Mohan has developed many critical thinking courses for students and has also trained teachers in critical and creative thinking skills. As Director, he ran one of Australia’s longest running school based centres for gifted children. He has written hundreds of different types of critical thinking questions and had more than 70 books published. His latest books, Critical Thinking Book 3 and Mathematical Reasoning Book 3 have recently been published by Five Senses Education. 

Sample Question

In Australia cars drive on the left-hand side of the road. On the image below the position and direction of a moving vehicle is marked with a blue arrowhead.

Which of the following is a correct annotation of the direction of movement of this and other vehicles on the mapped roads?

A)

B)

C)

D)

Reveal the answer plus

The answer is D.

The key lies in understanding that traffic drives on the left-hand side and understanding the nature of roads as implied by the blue arrow. The road with the blue arrow is clearly one-way (moving North). The other side must be southbound.

The red arrows indicate the traffic flows:

 

Now to those confusing middle roads. They are shown below. Here the cars come up to the main north south road:

 

And here they leave the main north south road: