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CHAPTER

1

Critical thinking and problem solving

5

be harmful to health (untrue: when orthodox medicine fails, patients are more

seriously ill).

• Confusion over percentages and numbers. For example, 15 per cent of road fatal-

ities involve motorbikes and 75 per cent involve cars so it is five times safer to ride

a motorbike than to drive a car (untrue: fewer than one in 50 vehicles are motor-

bikes).

• Over-generalizing. For example, nine out of 10 people interviewed said

they would buy a small car next time so there is little market for the large car

(sample too small or unrepresentative; all those interviewed drove small cars).

• Logical fallacy: the premises are true but do not support the conclusion (though

it may be true). For example, if A follows B (true) then so must C, D and E (false).

Note that a true conclusion can be arrived at (accidentally) with false premises.

Questions in the IMAT take various forms:

• A short paragraph that contains a conclusion and the evidence that supports

it. You should assume that the evidence (premises) is true for the purposes of

the argument; ie, do not introduce your own knowledge base or opinions. Choose

an answer that:

– is the

best conclusion

(ie the main thrust of the argument or what can be safely

inferred

), or

– identifies what has been

implied

(not directly stated or assumed, but suggested

or hinted at), or

– identifies what

must be assumed

for the conclusion to hold true, or

– would

weaken

the argument if it were true (ie contradictory statement;

alternative explanation), or

– would

strengthen

the argument if it were true (ie supportive statement;

consistent), or

– would show the conclusion to be untrue (eg a

fallacy

).

You need to analyse the argument in order to distinguish between the conclusion and

the supporting reasons, together with any contextual information that may be

included in the passage.

Some questions test a combination of skills, or approach the problem from a different

perspective, so you could be asked to: clarify an ambiguous term, explain an anomaly

or discrepancy, describe the logical function of a word or phrase, assess a definition,

or supply a missing piece in a chain of reasoning.

Of course, in order to answer correctly, a background of semi-technical knowledge is

assumed: this includes terms such as

premise

,

assumption

,

reason

,

explanation

,

inference

,

implication

,

consequence

and

conclusion

. You will be expected to distinguish between

necessary

and

sufficient conditions

,

general

and

particular statements

,

cause

and

correlation

,

and to recognise relations such as

consistency

,

contradiction

,

compatibility

and

equiva-

lence

.