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English•Academic and Professional Writing

Critical reasoning

University 5 questions
AI-drafted from platform data — specialist review scheduledBy DigiTransact Mastermind editorial teamLast updated
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What critical reasoning means

This skill helps you judge whether a claim is well supported and whether the reasoning follows clearly. You learn to spot weak arguments, hidden assumptions and fallacies, so you can answer questions and write with more care.

What you will practise

  • Check if conclusions really follow from the given premises
  • Spot attacks on a person instead of the argument
  • Identify false choices that ignore other possible answers
  • Separate evidence from opinion or emotional wording
  • Choose the strongest logical response in a short passage

Before you start

You should already be comfortable reading short passages and identifying main ideas. It also helps to know basic sentence meaning and common linking words such as therefore, because and however.

Not confident yet? Work through Academic writing first.

Worked example

One question from this skill's own question bank, shown with its full working.

Question

Attacking the person instead of their argument is the fallacy of:

  • Straw man
  • Ad hominem
  • False dilemma
  • Slippery slope
Answer: Ad hominem

Working: Ad hominem means against the person rather than the argument.

Common mistakes to avoid

  • Choosing an answer from your own opinion instead of the text
  • Missing hidden assumptions that make an argument look stronger than it is
  • Treating any strong statement as a valid proof
  • Confusing a personal attack with a criticism of the evidence

Curriculum and exam alignment

Tertiary foundation coursework

In university and tertiary foundation work, this usually appears in early communication, general studies and reasoning tasks. It also supports tertiary coursework and professional entrance tests that ask you to judge arguments, identify fallacies and follow logical steps.

Curriculum notes are a general guide to where this work normally sits. Always check the syllabus your school or examination body is currently using.

Related skills

Other Academic and Professional Writing skills in English, at the same point in the course.

Other English topics

Early Reading and WritingSHS English and LiteratureGrammarVocabularyReading ComprehensionPunctuation

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Exams that assess critical reasoning

University work on this skill feeds directly into these exam papers. Each page lists the English topics that appear on it.

BECEBECE practice questionsListed as a related subject on the BECE practice page.WASSCEWASSCE practice questionsListed as a related subject on the WASSCE practice page.GESGES practice questionsListed as a related subject on the GES practice page.

How this page was produced

This text was drafted with AI assistance from the questions and topics already stored on the platform. A subject-specialist review is scheduled but has not yet been recorded, so we do not claim it here.

Written by
DigiTransact Mastermind editorial team
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Practise critical reasoning

5 questions with a worked answer after every attempt, and a SmartScore that tracks how close you are to mastery.

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