Critical Thinking exercises are based upon "A CIVIL ACTION" Ann Anderson et al. v. Cryovac Inc. W.R. Grace Inc., John J. Riley Company Inc., Beatrice Inc. et al. Superior Court Civil Action #82-2444, Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Filed May 14, 1982.

This section is broken down into three sections. Specific instructions are provided in each section.

The first section consists of the two assignments themselves.

The five exercises will allow you will analyze a number of situations and use your critical thinking skills.

The example section will let you apply what you have learned to a number of passages based on the assignments and exercises section.

Analyze the arguments in the eight passages (Examples 1-8) using the skills learned from the exercises. Outline the following: (i) issues and conclusions; (ii) reasons and conclusions; (iii) ambiguous words or phrases; (iv) value conflicts and assumptions; (v) descriptive assumptions; (vi) fallacies in reasoning; (vii) validity of the evidence; (viii) rival causes; (ix) deceptive statistics; (x) omitted evidence; (xi) alternative conclusions. Write a brief paragraph explaining each.

An example of how the analysis for the example section could be done is available here.