NIFT – Critical Thinking

Assignment 2 – UG1 - Submission deadline: 30th October 2019

Submission by Hard Copy only

Name:
Branch:

About the assignment:

This is an open book assignment. You are free to refer to the book.

Each section has more questions than are required to be answered. You can choose to answer more
than the required questions. There is no negative marking, and all marks for correct answers will be
counted.

Total marks for the section will be the maximum allowed (even if your score goes above the max
marks for the section. No adjustment will be made against scores in other sections).

Please submit a printed out assignment. You can print the assignment and answer in ink
(preferable), or you can answer on the computer itself and then take a print out. If you are
answering on the computer, please use a larger font for the answers.

MCQ: For all Multiple choice questions, please tick against the right answer.
For True/False – Please tick in the respective boxes

-------------------------------------------------Section 1-------------------------------------------
Answer any 2 questions
Max marks: 6
Marks per correct answer: 3

The lettered words and phrases that follow each of the following fragments vary in their vagueness
and/or generality. In each instance, determine which is the most , and then rank the remainder in
order of precision, to the extent possible.

-----Example -----
Over the past ten years, the median income of wage earners in St. Paul

a. nearly doubled
b. increased substantially
c. increased by 85.5 percent
d. increased by more than 85 percent

Answer to example

C, D, A, B

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q1. Arun and Sabita

a. decided to sell their house and move

b. made plans for the future
c. considered moving
d. talked
e. discussed their future
f. discussed selling their house

Q2. Kiran

a. worked in the garden all afternoon

b. spent the afternoon planting flowers in the garden
c. was outside all afternoon
d. spent the afternoon planting roses alongside his front sidewalk
e. spent the afternoon in the garden

Q3. The hurricane that struck South Carolina

a. caused more than $20 million in property damage

b. destroyed dozens of structures
c. was severe and unfortunate
d. produced no fatalities but caused $25 million in property damage

Q4. The recent changes in the tax code

a. will substantially increase taxes paid by those making more than $200,000 per year

b. will increase by 4 percent the tax rate for those making more than $200,000 per year; will leave
unchanged the tax rate for people making between $40,000 and $200,000; and will decrease by 2
percent the tax rate for those making less than $40,000

c. will make some important changes in who pays what in taxes

d. are tougher on the rich than the provisions in the previous tax law

e. raise rates for the wealthy and reduce them for those in the lowest
Brackets

-------------------------------Section 2------------------------------------

Answer any 5 questions

Max Marks -10
Marks per correct answer - 2

Which of each set of claims is more precise (i.e., suffers least from vagueness, ambiguity, or
generality)?
------------------------Example ----------------------------------
a. The trees served to make shade for the patio.
b. He served his country proudly.

Answer
The use of “served” in (b) is more vague than that in (a). We know
exactly what the trees did; we don’t know what he did.

----------------------------------

Q1. a. Rooney served the church his entire life.

b. Rooney’s tennis serve is impossible to return.

Q2. a. The window served its purpose.

b. The window served as an escape hatch.

Q3. a. Throughout their marriage, Alfredo served her dinner.

b. Throughout their marriage, Alfredo served her well.

Q4. a. Minta turned her ankle.

b. Minta turned to religion.

Q5. a. These scales will turn on the weight of a hair.

b. This car will turn on a dime.

Q6. a. Fenner’s boss turned vicious.

b. Fenner’s boss turned out to be forty-seven.

Q7. a. Time to turn the garden.

b. Time to turn off the sprinkler.

Q8. a. The wine turned to vinegar.

b. The wine turned out to be vinegar.

---------------------------- Section - 3 ---------------------------------------------

Answer any two
Max marks - 6
Max Marks per answer - 3

Decide which is the best answer to each question.

Q1. On Thanksgiving Day 1990, an image said by some to resemble the Virgin Mary was observed in
a stained glass window of St. Dominic’s Church in Colfax, California. A physicist asked to investigate
said the image was caused by sunlight shining through the window and reflecting from a newly
installed hanging light fixture. Others said the image was a miracle. Whose explanation is more likely
true?

a. The physicist’s
b. The others’
c. More information is needed before we can decide which explanation is
more likely.

Q2. It is late at night around the campfire when the campers hear awful grunting noises in the woods
around them. They run for their lives! Two campers, after returning the next day, tell others they
found huge footprints around the campfire. They are convinced they were attacked by
Bigfoot. Which explanation is more likely true?

a. The campers heard Bigfoot.

b. The campers heard some animal and are pushing the Bigfoot explanation
to avoid being thought of as chickens, or are just making the story
up for unknown reasons.
c. Given this information, we can’t tell which explanation is more likely.

Q3. Megan’s aunt says she saw a flying saucer. “I don’t tell people about this,” Auntie says, “because
they’ll think I’m making it up. But this really happened. I saw this strange light, and this, well, it
wasn’t a saucer, exactly, but it was round and big, and it came down and hovered just over
my back fence, and my two dogs began whimpering. And then it just, whoosh! It just vanished.”
Megan knows her aunt, and Megan knows she doesn’t make up stories.

a. She should believe her aunt saw a flying saucer.

b. She should believe her aunt was making the story up.
c. She should believe that her aunt may well have had some unusual experience,
but it was probably not a visitation by extraterrestrial beings.

Q4. According to Dr. Edith Fiore, author of The Unquiet Dead, many of your personal problems are
really the miseries of a dead soul who has possessed you sometime during your life. “Many people
are possessed by earthbound spirits. These are people who have lived and died, but did not go into
the afterworld at death. Instead they stayed on Earth and remained just like they were before death,
with the fears, pains, weaknesses and other problems that they had when they were alive.” She
estimates that about 80 percent of her more than 1,000 patients are suffering from the problems
brought on by being possessed by spirits of the dead. To tell if you are among the possessed, she
advises that you look for such telltale symptoms as low energy levels, character shifts or mood
swings, memory problems, poor concentration, weight gain with no obvious cause, and bouts of
depression (especially after hospitalization). Which of these reactions is best?

a. Wow! I bet I’m possessed!

b. Well, if a doctor says it’s so, it must be so.
c. If these are signs of being possessed, how come she thinks that only
80 percent of her patients are?
d. Too bad there isn’t more information available, so we could form a reasonable
judgment.

------------------------------------Section - 4 -----------------------------------------
Answer any 3 questions
Max marks - 6
Marks per question - 2

For each of the items below, evaluate the credibility and authority of each source
relative to the issue in question. Whom would you trust as most reliable on the
subject?

Q1. Issue: Is Crixivan an effective HIV/AIDS medication?

a. Consumer Reports
b. Stadtlander Drug Company (the company that makes Crixivan)
c. the owner of your local health food store
d. the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
e. your local pharmacist

Q2. Issue: Should possession of handguns be outlawed?

a. a police chief
b. a representative of the National Rifle Association
c. a U.S. senator
d. the father of a murder victim

Q3. Issue: What was the original intent of the Second Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution, and does it include permission for every citizen to possess
handguns?

a. a representative of the National Rifle Association

b. a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
c. a Constitutional historian
d. a U.S. senator
e. the President of the United States

Q4. Issue: Is decreasing your intake of dietary fat and cholesterol likely to
reduce the level of cholesterol in your blood?

a. Time magazine
b. Runner’s World magazine
c. your physician
d. the National Institutes of Health
e. the New England Journal of Medicine

Q5. Issue: When does a human life begin?

a. a lawyer
b. a physician
c. a philosopher
d. a minister
e. you

-----------------------------------Section 6 ----------------------------------------

Answer any 4 questions

2 marks per question
Marks - 8

Read the passage below, and answer the questions that follow.

In the Georgia State University History Department, students are invited to submit written
evaluations of their instructors to the department’s personnel committee, which uses those
evaluations to help determine whether history instructors should be recommended for retention
and promotion. In his three history classes, Professor Ludlum has a total of one hundred students.
Six students turned in written evaluations of Professor Ludlum; four of these evaluations were
negative, and two were positive. Professor Hitchcock, who sits on the History Department
Personnel Committee, argued against recommending Ludlum for promotion.

“If a majority of the students who bothered to evaluate Ludlum find him lacking,” he stated, “then
it’s clear to me that a majority of all his students find him lacking.”

1. What is the sample in Professor Hitchcock’s reasoning?

2. What is the target population?

3. What is the feature?

4. Are there possibly important differences between the sample and the target population that
should reduce our confidence in Professor Hitchcock’s conclusion?
5. Is the sample random?

6. How about the size of Professor Hitchcock’s sample? Is it large enough to help ensure that
the sample and target population won’t be too dissimilar?

7. Based on the analysis of Professor Hitchcock’s reasoning that you have just completed in
the foregoing questions, how strong is his reasoning?