Critical Thinking

Following on from my post yesterday, I decided to take a more detailed look at the Lovells website, I have been there before but only perused briefly over it. Its got some great information on their for potential graduate recruits, but one part of the site really intrigued me, their Critical Thinking Test.

You can find the example test they provide HERE, it basically revolves around different skills that will be required of you daily whilst working as a solicitor. The test breaks this down into different sections they are:
-Inference
-Recognition of Assumptions
-Deduction
-Interpretation
-Evaluation of Arguments

On my first legitimate go I achieved 65%, not great but not bad either considering I performed it whilst on lunch at work and people were interrupting me constantly. However it got me to thinking IT has done me a great justice in that I am required to use the above skills everyday in IT, but with different material. I feel that maybe I need to read up more on this Critical Thinking approach, just to prepare myself for any potential tests far in the future and to get a headstart on further developing the skills I may be needing when I become a Solicitor/Barrister.

I would recommend anyone go try out the test, its good fun and just requires some logical thought, but I would suggest doing it alone and in a quiet room, never helps to be interrupted and told a Server has crashed or a director of the companies Laptop won't connect to the internet, when you trying to deduce whether heart disease in the north is caused more by the basic lower income (do the test your understand that point).

I did some more research on the actual test being used by Lovells and its called Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal, I have decided to try and invest in a book or two on the subject of critical thinking and see where that takes me for now