HPSC20021: Critical Reasoning

Ignore the handbook. This is what it comprises of, unfortunately I don't know the exact percentages as they never told us. I'll go into detail about what these are later
Homework tasks - essentially one a week, comprises about 10% probably
MLM(Mastery Learning Milestones) - probably about another 10% (are also a hurdle)
Main assignment draft - 5% probably
Main assignment - 25% probably
Exams - 50%
Again all of these are rough guesses.

First of all, I'd like to prelude that this has been my most enjoyable subject to date, and it's been relatively easy.
What even is critical reasoning? It is essentially, the ability to figure out if an argument is reasonable or not. The type of questions you'll be asked in the exam are basically the same as the LSAT LOGICAL reasoning questions.(not the analytical ones)

Personally I have found this subject to develop my reasoning to a much greater degree than I had before, and I thought I was pretty good at logical reasoning before. Coming out of this subject, you become naturally attuned to picking out holes in peoples arguments, the flaws and the assumptions needed for their conclusion to be true. It was because of this new skill I have, that I rate this subject 5/5 (it was also quite easy and fun)

Okay so onto what you actually do in the subject...

The whole subject is centered around this argument mapping program(which is free), and you essentially learn how to map more and more complex arguments in this program in the first 6 weeks. This is pretty laborious and easy, and so the first 6 weeks are pretty cruisy. The idea with these 6 weeks is you learn to understand the structure of an arguments (well atleast that's what i got out of it) and also to form a foundation of the stuff you do in the last 6 weeks. The last 6 weeks being the part where you start assessing other peoples arguments, making your own arguments.

Assessment:
The homework is essentially mapping arguments based on what you learnt in the seminar things and is easy to do, if you get it wrong, he emails and ask you to do it again and again until you get it right. So basically full marks for that
The MLMs are essentially tests based off the homework and you need to get 90%+ on them. However you have unlimited attempts, and no penalty for not getting above 90%. So another full marks for that.
The main assignment is the most time consuming thing and requires a fair bit of effort. The assignment is to map your own argument of your choice and to make it as persuasive as possible. A lot of people for example chose, people should be vegetarians and then had to map a big argument as to why that is true, including objections to some of their arguments and then subsequent rebuttals.

The exam:
Okay, so this was the weirdest part of the whole subject. The first 3 seminar/tute things of the whole subject were exams. One in each seminar. Then, in the exam period you do the same exams (same format atleast) so they can compare how you were before the subject and how good you are now. So yeah, you have 3 exams... then again, you can't prepare for the exams, it all depends on if you do the work in the semester.

Just briefly on the seminars, there are like 10 people in them, and the main tutor guy, Ashley Barnett, is awesome. He's absolutely hilarious and is brilliant at explaining things. The seminars are not in a lecture type format, its more like tutes, lots of discussion and questions.

So just to reiterate, there are no essays or anything, just a lot of mapping arguments. According to Ash, the people who did it in the summer semester didn't do so well so maybe its not worth doing over the summer...
PM me if you have any questions.
I think I've covered everything...

No, no recording at all

Ashley Barnett and Neil Thomason

Not really, though you can easily find similar questions online by just looking up Logical reasoning questions.

5 Out of 5

No textbook, they provide an online one which is part of the homework tasks.

1x 2 hour seminar and 2x 1 hour seminar - ** the seminars are exactly the same as tutes so don't think of it as being lectures.

2013, semester 1

92 H1