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在知道了逻辑的重要性后https://bbs.gter.net/thread-1071615-1-1.html
那么，接下来，ETS就给了我们一个概念，而且多次提到——critical thinking
The analytical writing section is a new section of the GRE General Test introduced beginning in October 2002 that tests your critical thinking and analytical writing skills.
The "Present Your Perspective on an Issue" task assesses your ability to think critically about a topic of general interest and to clearly express your thoughts about it in writing.
The Issue task is an exercise in critical thinking and persuasive writing. The purpose of this task is to
determine how well you can develop a compelling argument supporting your own perspective on an issue
and to effectively communicate that argument in writing to an academic audience.
It is not your position that matters so much as the critical thinking skills you display in developing your position.
这都是在intro中提到的语句，还有很多，就不枚举了，下面就根据这篇文章来对critical thinking有一个全面的认识，使我们在构造行文时紧跟原则，从而使文章更具说服力。
What is critical thinking？
The term “critical thinking” is used, in one form or another, throughout this site — but what does it mean? Some may get the impression that it simply involves finding fault with others and others’ ideas, but that isn’t really the case. As a general rule, critical thinking involves developing some emotional and intellectual distance between yourself and ideas — whether your own or others’ — in order to better evaluate their truth, validity, and reasonableness.
Your task is to present a compelling case for your own position on the issue. Be sure to read the claim carefully and think about it from several points of view, considering the complexity of ideas associated with those perspectives.
Critical thinking的真正意义就是使你的观点合理有说服力。这点与intro中的要求是一致的。
Critical thinking is an effort to develop reliable, rational evaluations about what is reasonable for us to believe and disbelieve. Critical thinking makes use of the tools of logic and science because it values skepticism over gullibility or dogmatism, reason over faith, science of pseudoscience, and rationality over wishful thinking. Critical thinking does not guarantee that we will arrive at truth, but it does make it much more likely than any of the alternatives do.
我们来看critical thinking所value的内容，都是在Issue的题目中有所体现的，码几个例子出来看看：
153."Students should bring a certain skepticism to whatever they study. They should question what they are taught instead of accepting it passively."
162."One often hears about the need for individuals to take responsibility for their own lives. However, the conditions in which people find themselves have been largely established long before people become aware of them. Thus, the concept of personal responsibility is much more complicated and unrealistic than is often assumed."
31."Money spent on research is almost always a good investment, even when the results of that research are controversial."
11."All nations should help support the development of a global university designed to engage students in the process of solving the world's most persistent social problems."
通过对这些题目的分析可以体现对传统观念、教条主义的批判，对信念的支持，对伪科学的评估，对可能实现的目标的合理的阐述。这只是几个例子，在244道issue题目中，这些观念的体现可谓淋漓尽致，这也正是ETS所要求的，符合一个graduate student水平的对事物的分析与认识。有的人说，AW的通过逻辑考察一个人的世界观、价值观，大概体现于此吧。
The GRE readers scoring your response are not looking for a "right" answer—in fact, there is no correct position to take. Instead, the readers are evaluating the skill with which you articulate and develop an argument to support your position on the issue.
Critical thinking不是确保我们能得到一个真理，正如intro中说的，reader并不是去找一个"right" answer，我们是通过critical thinking来支持我们的观点。
Explaining the concept of critical thinking might be easier if we go through some of the key characteristics which are necessary for thinking critically about something:
Open-Mindedness
A person who wishes to think critically about something like politics or religion must be open-minded. This requires being open to the possibility that not only are others right, but also that you are wrong. Too often people launch into a frenzy of arguments apparently without taking any time to consider that they may be mistaken in something.
这段话其实就是阐述了我们分析issue过程中不可或缺的一部分：在分析一个题目的时候，应该考虑到各方面的因素，不能武断地认为哪个观点绝对正确或者完全错误。虽然ETS提到你可以任意选择你自己的立意。但是，我们之所以要深入分析一个题目，就是要通过你的brainstorm来找到自己认为合理的、容易论述的观点，从而有力地去展开。如果只是捡出几个关键词不假思索就开始写提纲，不但违背了critical thinking的初衷，而且也往往使我们的构思陷于窘境或者使一个论述千疮百孔。
• qualify any of its terms, especially if the way you define or apply a term is important to developing your perspective on the issue
Of course, it is also possible to be too “open-minded” because not every idea is equally valid or has an equal chance of being true. Although we should technically allow for the possibility that someone is correct, we must still require that they offer support for their claims — if they cannot or do not, we may be justified in dismissing those claims and acting as if they weren’t true.
• agree absolutely with the claim, disagree completely, or agree with some parts and not others
正如intro中提到的，你可以完全同意也可以完全反对，或者同意部分观点，也就是说不是每个观点都是合理的正确的。Open-minded就是让我们通过自己的分析来决定它的合理性，从而形成自己的观点。
Differentiate Emotion and Reason
Even if we have clear logical and empirical reasons for accepting an idea, we also probably have emotional and psychological reasons for accepting it — reasons which we may not be fully aware of. It is important to critical thinking, however, that we learn to separate the two because the latter can easily interfere with the former.
Our emotional reasons for believing something might be quite understandable, but if the logic behind the belief is wrong, then ultimately we should not consider our belief rational. If we really are going to approach our beliefs in a skeptical, fair manner, then we must be willing to set aside our emotions and evaluate the logic and reasoning on their own terms — possibly even rejecting our beliefs if they fail to live up to logical criteria (see Open-Mindedness).
这一点应该是我们备考中的一个关键问题，我们看到一个观点脑子里就马上搜索自己所知道的有关这个观点的一切，人都是主观的，你所接受的东西通常你愿意去接受的，这样有些根深蒂固的观念或许就不符合逻辑。比如，我们对艺术、政治或者其它我们不太熟习的领域的理解有时候会略显偏激或者片面。在ISSUE的分析过程中，关键字的定义就显得很重要，对一些关键的概念进行查阅，通常在备考过程中wikipedia是大家必备的工具。查阅概念的同时也是我们的思想与比较符合逻辑的主流的思想所交汇的一个过程，毕竟符合主流的东西更容易让人接受。
Argue from Knowledge, not Ignorance
Because we often have an emotional or other psychological investment in our beliefs, it isn’t unusual for people to step forward and try to defend those beliefs regardless of whether the logic or evidence for them are weak. Indeed, sometimes people will defend an idea even though they really don’t know a great deal about it — they think they do, but they don’t.
A person who tries to practice critical thinking, however, also tries to avoid assuming that they already know everything they need to know. Such a person is willing to allow that someone who disagrees can teach them something relevant and refrains from arguing a position if they are ignorant of important, relevant facts.
这里基本反映的issue中的要点和上面的一个一样，就是不要自以为是，应该明确基本的概念。同样，作者在阐述题目的时候也是自己的观点，也有可能是they think they do, but they don’t. Intro中如是说：
• point out why the claim is valid in some situations but not in others
• evaluate points of view that contrast with your own perspective
还有一点很重要，看最后一句话，这里说的其实是互改的好处。在我们把自己的文章细致修改后，参加互改，让别人看看我们的观点是不是有说服力，这个过程中，总会有值得借鉴的东西。
Probability is not Certainty
There are ideas that are probably true and ideas that are certainly true, but while it is nice to have an idea that belongs in the latter group, we must understand that the latter group is far, far smaller than the former. However preferable it might be otherwise, we can’t be absolutely certain about quite a lot of matters — especially those matters that are the focus of many debates.
When a person exercises skepticism and critical thinking, they remember that just because they can show a conclusion is probably true, that doesn’t mean they have shown or can show that it is certainly true. Certain truths require firm conviction, but probable truths require only tentative conviction — that is to say, we should believe them with the same strength as the evidence and reason allow.
• question the assumptions the statement seems to be making
题目中会有一些assumption，这些应该就是probably true的内容，也是我们应该去思考的。
Avoid Linguistic Misunderstandings
Language is a complex and subtle tool. It allows us to communicate all sorts of ideas, including brand-new ideas, but the same subtlety and complexity leads to all kinds of misunderstandings, ambiguities, and vagueness. The fact of the matter is, what we think we are communicating might not be what others are receiving, and what we are receiving may not be what others are intending to communicate.
这点往往体现在表意不清，思维跳跃的问题上，不能让读者领会你的内容，大概每个人写出来的文章，或者看别人文章时候都会有这样的感觉吧？在互改的过程中经常会看到“LZ这里太深刻了太跳跃了实在看不懂“之类的评语，这是需要在不断的阅读，不断的自改过程中逐步完善的。
Critical thinking, then, must allow for the existence of ambiguities, vagueness, and misunderstandings in our communications. A person who tries to think critically must endeavor to eliminate those factors as much as possible — for example, by trying to get key terms clearly defined early on rather than allowing a debate to proceed with people using the same words to talk about completely different concepts.
这段文字涉及到表达的准确性问题。这是每一个新手都会面临的问题，在准备GRE之前我们很少些这么长篇幅的英文文字，而现在我们不但要写，还要清楚地写，更重要的是体现自己的逻辑。文章举到一个解决的方案，把关键的问题定义出来。这也就是文章框架构造的关键。通常的框架是，开头主旨句，接下来每段第一句开门见山点出分论点。这个算是个形式，但是纵观一些学术文章，还有优秀范文，大抵都是这样的结构。The readers' commentaries discuss specific aspects of analysis and writing, such as the use of examples, development and support, organization, language fluency, and word choice.
Avoid Common Fallacies
Most people can reason well enough to get by in their daily lives and no more. If that is enough to survive, why invest the extra time and work to improve? People who wish to have high standards for their beliefs and reasoning, however, cannot make do with the bare minimum just to get by in life — more education and practice are needed.
这里看起来貌似和intro的相关内容有些冲突，我且分析下其合理性。
• think about the issue in relation to your own ideas and experiences, to events you have read about or observed, and to people you have known; this is the knowledge base from which you will
develop compelling reasons and examples in your argument that reinforce, negate, or qualify theclaim in some way.
个人认为，能够结合生活实际是很好的，这样既方便论述又看起来很有说服力。但是，值得注意的一点是，文化问题，因为我们的生活毕竟和美国人有很大差别，所谓十里不同风，百里不同俗，何况隔了半个地球，我们的经历在别人看来可能是另一番概念，所以，在结合生活实际的时候要解释清楚。而运用education and practice方面的例子就可以避免因为文化问题而导致的表意问题，各有利弊吧，请批判性接受。
To this end, good critical thinking requires that a person become familiar with common logical fallacies which most people commit at some time or other without ever realizing it. Fallacies are errors in reasoning which creep into arguments and debates all the time; the practice of critical thinking should help a person avoid committing them and aid in identifying their appearance in others’ arguments. An argument that commits a fallacy cannot provide good reason to accept its conclusion; therefore, as long as fallacies are being committed, the arguments aren’t being very productive.
这里谈到常识性问题，也确实是应该避免的，这点在上边已经有相关阐述，不再赘述。
Don’t Jump to Conclusions
It’s easy and common for people to quickly go to the first and most obvious conclusion in any sort of dilemma, but the fact of the matter is the obvious conclusion isn’t always the correct one. Unfortunately, once a person adopts a conclusion it can be difficult to get them to give it up in favor of something else — after all, no one wants to be wrong, do they?
Because it is better to avoid trouble than to try to get out of trouble once in it, critical thinking emphasizes careful thinking as well — and this means not jumping to conclusions if you can avoid it. Go ahead and acknowledge the existence of an obvious conclusion because it might be right after all, but don’t actually adopt it until other options have been considered.
这里还是谈到要细致地分析题目，不能遇到问题就跳过而直接到结论。这点其实在阿狗的题目中体现比较多。一个完整的逻辑链是一步步推理出来的，而不应该出现断链。
结合这篇文章简单阐述了下一休题目的分析、构思、写作的方法，也涉及到备考过程中的一些重要的步骤，希望对大家有所帮助。
——紫陌纤尘 | 
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