Advanced Critical Reasoning
Course Summary
Take an argument apart in seconds: find the conclusion and its support, name the gap, and answer assumption, flaw, strengthen, weaken, principle, inference and matching questions by process.
What's in the course (1st lesson always FREE)
- Isolate the conclusion and the evidence in any argument, and the assumption that holds them together.
- Name the flaw in an argument in plain words before you look at the answer choices.
- Use one Assumption Family process for assumption, strengthen, weaken and principle-support questions.
- Translate conditional statements and their contrapositives without losing track of what must be true.
- Answer inference, matching, structure and explain-a-result questions with the same disciplined method.
- Tell a tempting wrong answer from a correct one by the exact words that make it wrong.
What's inside.
Every argument item on a reasoning test asks the same first question: what is the conclusion, and what is offered in support of it? The course begins there, with the argument core, then teaches the assumption behind it - the unstated link the author needs and never says.
From that foundation it works through the whole question family: identify the flaw, the single Assumption Family process that covers assumption, strengthen, weaken and principle-support questions, conditional logic and its contrapositives, principle examples, argument structure, inference, matching questions and explain-a-result. Each chapter teaches one question type as a variation on the same analysis, so you stop treating twelve question types as twelve techniques.
How to use it.
Go in order. Do not read the answer choices until you have said the flaw out loud in your own words - the chapters will keep returning you to that discipline. Each idea is demonstrated on a real argument, then practised, and the explanation tells you why every other choice fails, which is where most of the learning is.
What students get.
- One analysis that covers every argument question type
- The Assumption Family process, so four question types become one skill
- Conditional logic taught for use under time pressure, not as formalism
- Worked examples with the reasoning shown step by step
- Explanations that name the exact words that make a wrong answer wrong
- A progress panel that records what is finished and what still needs work
Learning Outcomes
- Twelve method chapters - argument core, assumption, flaws, strengthen and weaken, principles, conditional logic, inference, matching and explain a result.
- A single process for the whole Assumption Family, so four question types become one skill.
- Worked examples on real arguments, with the reasoning shown step by step.
- Practice after every idea, with a choice-by-choice explanation of why each option fails.
- Conditional logic applied to real questions, from diagram to answer.
- A progress panel that records what you have finished and what still needs work.
