Critical Thinking Exercises: 9 Facts and How They Elevate Your Mind

MARCH 26, 2014 BY KATRINAMANNING

Critical thinking requires you to think without bias or

judgement. It is one of the two basic thinking skills, along

with creative thinking. Critical thinking skills are first

learned in grade school and become even more significant

as you go through college and your career. It is a crucial

element for solving problems and learning new skills.

Essentially, you have to think about thinking; imagine that.

Critical thinking skills are divided into three categories:

affective, cognitive strategies encompassing macro-abilities

and cognitive strategies for micro-skills. If you want to

understand and process information better, you will need to exercise these skills, and there are a variety of ways

to do so.

Brain TeasersYou can stimulate your brain with brain teasers. To illustrate, here is a sample brain teaser you can use. Claudia,

Dan, and Jose are in a race. Here are their results:

1.The eldest person received the most points.

2.Mark got one-third of the points of the youngest.

3.Jose received as many points as both others combined.

Who is the youngest? This particular brainteaser helps you to exercise your planning and reasoning skills. First,

you need to read the statements, thoroughly. Then, you need to construct a plan in order to solve the problem.

Your planning process takes place in your brains prefrontal cortex. This part of your brain also executes how you

evaluate voluntary and goal-directed behavior. The Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

course teaches you a lot about critical thinking, in addition to how to solve simple and complex problems.

Open-Ended QuestionsOne way to get your brain more involved in the critical thinking process is through open-ended questions. For

instance, if someone asked you a yes or no question, there would not be much thinking involved. Furthermore,

that person would be in control of the conversation, for the most part. However, open-ended questions require

you to participate and come up with an unexpected answer that goes beyond only two selections.

Have someone ask you open-ended questions. Instead of asking Do you like peanut butter? the open-ended way

to ask would be, why do you like peanut butter? Other illustrations of open-ended questions include, What do

you think will happen next in the story? How did you make that choice? and How would you know if your day

was successful? While youre answering open-ended questions, check out this Udemy course, Develop

your CRITICAL THINKING skills easily!

Logic PuzzlesThese types of puzzles stem from the mathematics fields of deduction because they require deductive reasoning

or use of the process of elimination. They teach logic, reasoning and organizational skills. The reason is that you

have to concentrate on the details of the puzzle, in order to determine the solutions.

Logic puzzles are believed to help prevent memory loss and memory decline, as well. Popular logic puzzles

include crossword puzzles, Sudoku, Pic-a-Pix and Hitori. Furthermore, the gains you receive from playing a logic

puzzle can translate into your home and work life because these critical thinking exercises help you to tackle

new ways of solving problems.

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new ways of solving problems.

Reason with Your ValuesThere are facts and then, there are motivations, background and reasons for those facts. You can exert critical

thinking by conveying why a particular statement is right or wrong, good or bad. Figure out how to pinpoint

moral claims. A moral claim might state, It was wrong of Jim to cancel the job or ABC offers better

programming than CBS. You can then train yourself how to explain why you think the statement is correct or

incorrect in order to support its claims.

Explain YourselfAnother way to help improve your brains functions is through explaining objects or topics. You have to think

outside the box to give an understandable explanation to another party. For example, how would you describe

the view outside your window? In addition, you might attempt to describe a current event. For either option,

start with facts then move on to using your personal beliefs.

Analyze Your WritingWhen you create a piece of written work, go over it and figure out if you have any instances of critical thinking

and logic infused in your paper. You might have included some moral statements or even an explanation of a

scientific phenomenon where you presented the facts then combined your personal opinion. Having the ability

to notice improvements in your thinking abilities will help you to create benchmarks of your progress. Verifiable

measurements give you motivation to continue with your practice.

Affective SkillsCritical thinking exercises also improve the development of your ability to control your emotions as well as how

to use them to use them to your advantage. You can also use affective strategies to determine how you respond to

others. It goes without saying that you dont want to come across as a consistently hyper-emotional individual,

especially in the workplace.

So, you can establish a sense of fair-mindedness, intellectual humility, self-awareness, courage and confidence.

All of these traits are essential for attaining rewarding personal and working relationships.

Macro-AbilitiesAnother benefit of improving your critical thinking skills is its affect on your macro-abilities. This revolves

around your capacity to find data and then decide whether or not that information is valuable enough for your

particular purpose.

Some of the processes applied towards your decision-making process include reading, discussing, evaluating

and critical thinking. You can then use these competencies for writing, book reviews and solving problems. It

also promotes your reasoning, theoretical and interpretive skills.

Cognitive ApproachesHow you compare and contrast specific works of art, or science experiment results is a part of your cognitive

skill set. This also deals with your general processing speed, memory and attention aptitude. Imagine how your

life would be if you processed ideas with super speed and had enviable memory power? It would probably make

your daily and long-term activities a lot easier. Critical thinking exercises also positively affect your cognitive

skill set.

Putting it All TogetherThere are a variety of ways to improve your critical thinking processes using exercises and logic games. In

addition, participating in the Learn the Skill of Effective Mind Mapping course helps you to

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