Watson-Glaser Test Prep: Learn the Theory Behind the Test

The objective of the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Assessment is to test how good your critical thinking skills are. Most of the Watson-Glaser test prep material available today gives you questions similar to those in the Watson-Glaser assessment and then explains the answers in non-technical terms, that is, in the terms of everyday reasoning.

Why practice questions alone are not enough

This, unfortunately, is not a good way to prepare for the test. The purpose of the test is to test your critical thinking skills. Just because you are able to handle the test well by applying common sense doesn't mean that you really have the critical thinking skills required.

The fact is, everyone is good at reasoning to some degree. Some people are very good at high levels of reasoning, and some are not so good. Most people do not know the vocabulary of critical thinking. In the context of the Watson-Glaser assessment, this is basically the vocabulary of logical reasoning. Not knowing this vocabulary is a major handicap.

It is a handicap because without knowledge of the theory, you are largely doing pattern recognition. You are going by instinct and saying, "This doesn't sound right," or "This sounds right, so this must be the right answer." In arithmetic, you can show why 2 × 2 × 5 is not 10, because you can show the accepted calculation: 2 × 2 is 4, and 4 × 5 is 20.

Inference questions

Take the Inference questions. You are given a passage and a set of inferences, and you have to decide how likely each inference is to be true, based on the passage. Without the theory, you are unable to reason in a similar manner when you need to show why an inference is true, probably true, probably false or false, or why there is insufficient data.

Assumption questions

Similarly, when you are asked about an assumption, you are able to use your native intelligence and say that this assumption has been made, or that it hasn't been made. Without knowledge of logical reasoning, or rather critical thinking, you are unable to identify what an assumption is in the context of logical reasoning. In logical reasoning, an assumption is an unstated premise that supports the conclusion. If you are asked whether something is an assumption, and that statement does not support the conclusion, then it is quite safe to conclude that the assumption has not been made.

Deduction questions

Now let's look at the questions that ask whether a conclusion follows or does not follow. Again, you probably have enough native intelligence to get most of those answers right. But did you know that these questions are based on deductive arguments? In a deductive argument, if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. There are four types of deductive arguments. You may not be asked about all four types, but this could change as the test changes. At the end of the day, the test is only testing reasoning. So if you do not know the theory behind the questions, you are operating only on pattern recognition. By theory, I mean what a deductive argument is and what the different types of deductive arguments are. Without this theory, you rely on your native intelligence, some intuition, and the patterns you have set in your mind by doing a lot of practice questions. The first kind of pattern recognition is native to you. The second kind comes out of practice.

Interpretation questions

The Interpretation questions also ask whether a conclusion follows or does not follow, but the standard here is different. You are given a passage and a set of proposed conclusions, and you have to decide whether each conclusion follows beyond a reasonable doubt from the information in the passage. The conclusion does not have to follow with certainty, as it must in the Deduction questions. At the same time, you cannot accept a conclusion that goes further than the evidence in the passage allows, for example a conclusion that generalises from a few cases to all cases. Again, unless you understand how to judge whether evidence supports a conclusion, you are going by instinct.

Argument evaluation questions

Then there is another type of question, which asks whether an argument is strong or weak. You are not well placed to judge this with confidence unless you know what an argument is, what the different types of arguments are, and how to evaluate the structure of an argument systematically. Did you know that this question type applies to inductive arguments? These are arguments where, if the premises are true, the conclusion is likely to be true. If you do not know the difference between a deductive argument and an inductive argument, you will find it difficult to evaluate the strength of an argument, because the two types of argument are evaluated differently. There is a specific technique for judging the strength of inductive arguments. Again, unless you understand the theory behind it, you cannot be 100% sure that you are doing it the right way. Of course, even if you know the reasoning quite well, a question can sometimes trip you up because of its wording. Sometimes the questions are also framed in such a way that the answers are ambiguous or not easy to make out.

Causal reasoning

Apart from these question types, the test also checks whether you understand causal reasoning. In particular, it checks whether you are likely to make some standard errors in causal reasoning. The most common error is thinking that correlation is causation. A second check works like this: the passage describes two events and says that A causes B. While this might look reasonable to you in common-sense terms, the argument within the passage has not established the causation. This is why you need to understand causal reasoning as well, so that you can see whether the passage actually shows causation or not.

So for effective Watson-Glaser test prep, you need to understand logical reasoning. You need to understand each of the question types and the theory behind each one.

Why employers use the Watson-Glaser

You also need to step back and ask why organisations test you on critical thinking skills. An increasing number of organisations require applicants to take the Watson-Glaser test as a prerequisite, to see how much critical thinking ability the applicants have. It doesn't matter what the job is. If your job requires you to think, you are expected to think critically, and it is this critical thinking that the Watson-Glaser tests. Organisations test you on these skills because they expect you to apply them on the job.

The Watson-Glaser is best known as a test for applicants to law firms. As a lawyer, you might need to construct strong arguments. You need to be able to recognise strong arguments, and you need to make sure you do not make errors in causal reasoning. In criminal justice, and even in civil justice, you will probably be asked to develop arguments based on circumstantial evidence. This means you would be developing what are called convergent arguments, which are based on inductive reasoning.

However, the Watson-Glaser is not used only for law jobs. It is used across a wide spectrum of organisations, and several of these organisations look for critical thinking skills in applicants for executive and managerial roles. If you are a manager, you are solving problems and making decisions on a continuing basis. At the root of problem solving and decision making is the ability to think critically. You need to be able to move from data to inferences. In other words, you need to move from evidence to conclusions. Moving from evidence to a conclusion is nothing but constructing an argument, and constructing arguments requires knowledge of critical thinking.

Watson-Glaser test prep: learn the theory behind the test

So learning the theory behind the Watson-Glaser test does not just help you approach the test more intelligently. It also helps you do the jobs you are getting into much better.

Watson-Glaser test prep with just a whole lot of questions and answers does not really build knowledge. It may build some skill in pattern recognition if you have done enough questions. But if you want to answer the questions from a base of conceptual knowledge, you really have no choice but to learn the theory behind the test.

My book, Critical Thinking for Watson-Glaser, does precisely that. It teaches you the reasoning behind the Watson-Glaser test. It also gives you 168 questions based on the Watson-Glaser question pattern, along with answers. The answers use the concepts and theory explained in the earlier chapters. They do not explain the answers only in terms of everyday reasoning. They show which concepts apply to each question.

The Watson-Glaser tests you on the core critical thinking skills. For a manager, however, there is much more to critical thinking than what the Watson-Glaser tests. If you are looking to develop critical thinking skills with greater breadth and depth, take a look at my other books on critical thinking.