Thinking Skills: Logic, Patterns and Argument
What the section tests
Thinking skills items test reasoning rather than learned content: deductive logic, sequences and patterns, spatial reasoning, data interpretation, and evaluating arguments. You must separate what is stated from what is assumed.
Concepts to master
- Conditional statements: "If P then Q" tells you that not-Q implies not-P. It does not tell you that Q implies P.
- Sufficient versus necessary: a sufficient condition guarantees an outcome; a necessary condition must hold but may not be enough.
- Pattern rules: check differences, then ratios, then alternating rules before assuming a simple step.
- Strengthening and weakening: ask whether new information makes the conclusion more or less likely.
- Assumptions: an unstated belief the argument needs in order to work.
Traps to watch
- Converse error: treating "all swimmers are fit" as "all fit people swim".
- Patterns that fit the first three terms but fail the fourth.
- Options that repeat the premise instead of supporting the conclusion.
- Emotional or popular claims offered in place of evidence.
Rule of thumb
For logic questions, restate the rule in symbols and test each option against it. For patterns, predict the next term before reading the options, then check which one matches.
Worked example
"If a plant is watered daily, it flowers." The plant did not flower. What follows? By the contrapositive, it was not watered daily. Concluding "it was watered daily but something else went wrong" contradicts the rule.