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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.
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.
One question from this skill's own question bank, shown with its full working.
Attacking the person instead of their argument is the fallacy of:
Working: Ad hominem means against the person rather than the argument.
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.
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5 questions with a worked answer after every attempt, and a SmartScore that tracks how close you are to mastery.