© UCLES 2020
Presidential Schools – Thinking Skills Test
SAMPLE
QUESTIONS
The questions below are intended as a guide to the types of question which will be
included in the Thinking Skills test for students applying to grades 9 – 10.
The
key for each question, together with a short justification, is also included.
For further information please see the separate test specification document.
© UCLES 2020
Critical Thinking
1
In general, having a larger brain is a sign of greater intelligence. Humans are more intelligent
than other primates and their brains are also significantly bigger. Birds, however, have tiny
brains, but they are also very smart. Crows can use tools, songbirds seem to have
a primitive
language, parrots can learn human speech. Birds typically have much smaller brains than
mammals, and yet are often a lot smarter – especially when it comes to smaller mammals.
Which one of these sentences can be concluded from the above information?
A
Birds are not as intelligent as they appear to be.
B
The only way to measure a creature’s intelligence is to observe its behaviour.
C
Brain size is not the only factor that determines how intelligent a creature is.
D
The most intelligent birds will be the ones with the biggest brains.
Key: C
Justification
The passage states that brain size is usually a
good indicator of intelligence, but that birds
are an exception to this general rule. In some cases, they are more intelligent than mammals
with bigger brains than theirs. We can conclude from this that brain
size is not the only factor
that determines how intelligent a creature is.
© UCLES 2020
2
The only way to know if a medicine actually works is if it has been properly tested on a large
enough group of people (and compared against people who did not take it). It is not good
enough to simply try it and find it seems to work for yourself. The reason for this is that you
can’t know if it really was the medicine working, or if you just got better for some
other reason
at the same time. In Jasur’s case, his only reason for thinking his grandmother’s herbal remedy
works is simply that he drank some and then his cough got better.
Which one of these sentences can be concluded from the above information?