Critical Thinking Flashcards
7 cards from real UDEE practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Critical Thinking flashcards as text
An officer is presented with two competing explanations for the same evidence. According to the principle of parsimony (Occam's Razor), the officer should:
Answer: Favor the simpler explanation that requires fewer unsupported assumptions
Occam's Razor holds that among competing explanations, the one requiring the fewest unsupported assumptions is preferred until evidence demands more complexity.
A report says crime rates in a district fell 15% after a new patrol strategy was implemented. A critical thinker would first ask:
Answer: Were there other changes during the same period that could explain the decline?
Before attributing the change to the new strategy, a critical thinker must rule out confounding variables that occurred simultaneously.
During a briefing, an officer hears: 'We've always responded to these calls this way.' This statement is an example of which logical fallacy?
Answer: Appeal to tradition (argumentum ad antiquitatem)
The appeal to tradition fallacy argues that because something has always been done a certain way, it is the correct or best way.
An investigator finds that every robbery in the past month occurred within three blocks of an ATM. The best next step is to:
Answer: Consider whether ATM proximity is coincidental or reflects offender target selection
Spatial patterns may reflect rational offender behavior, but causal inference requires evaluating alternative explanations before drawing conclusions.
Which scenario best illustrates the danger of 'tunnel vision' in an investigation?
Answer: An officer who focuses only on one suspect and ignores evidence pointing to others
Tunnel vision causes investigators to prematurely commit to one theory and filter out contradicting evidence, risking wrongful outcomes.
An officer must assess whether a juvenile's signed confession is reliable. Which factor is LEAST relevant to that assessment?
Answer: The juvenile's prior academic grades
Academic performance has no established relationship to the voluntariness or reliability of a confession under interrogation conditions.
Which of the following is the strongest evidence that an argument is logically valid?
Answer: If the premises are true, the conclusion cannot be false
Logical validity means the conclusion necessarily follows from the premises — if the premises hold, the conclusion must hold regardless of who presents it.