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How Important Is Critical Thinking?

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How Important Is Critical Thinking?
By Rene Armbruster | Submitted On February 23, 2013

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Expert Author Rene Armbruster
What is critical thinking? Simply put it is looking at both sides of an issue then weighing your position based on factual evidence you have gathered on the subject matter.

What is prior (background) knowledge? Prior knowledge is information you know about any given subject prior to learning a more difficult concept. For instance, you must know the answer to 2+2 before you learn 2X2.

You might hear critical thinking being referred to as higher order thinking. The two terms are interchangeable. These thinking skills require the person draw inferences from the information they 've been given. The person must also use deductive skills from all of the gathered facts in order to make an informative decision or to take a position on the subject.

A person who is passionate about history will think differently from someone who takes science more seriously. Thus the sayings, "Think like a historian", or "he is thinking like a scientist."

The 1983 report, A Nation at Risk, showed that only 1/5 of 17 year olds could write a persuasive

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