Think Lab
Analyze a Headline
Practice reading three headlines for what they establish, what they imply, and what they leave for the article to prove.
Practice
Think Lab
Reading about a skill and using it are different things. These six exercises give you something to decide, then show the reasoning behind each option.
How the exercises work
Each exercise presents a short scenario and asks what you would conclude. Once you choose, you see why that response is stronger or weaker than the others. Nothing is marked right or wrong, because in most of these cases more than one answer is defensible and the useful information is in the reasoning.
Every option has an explanation, including the weak ones, and every item ends with a note on what remains uncertain even after the exercise. If a scenario looks like it should have a clean answer and does not, that is usually the point being made.
What you should know before starting
- Every scenario is fictional and was written for the exercise. None describes a real person, organization, or event. Each one is labelled as fictional on the page.
- Nothing is collected. There is no account, no score, no cookie, and no data sent anywhere. Your selections exist only in your browser tab and disappear when you close it.
- They work without JavaScript. If scripts are unavailable, each item has an answer key you can expand, containing every explanation.
- They work by keyboard. Tab to move between options, arrow keys to choose within a group, and Enter or Space to open an answer key.
The six exercises
Analyze a Headline
Practice reading three headlines for what they establish, what they imply, and what they leave for the article to prove.
Skill practised: Reading a headline for its precise claim, separating what it establishes from what it merely implies. About 8 minutes.
Evaluate a Source
Practice lateral reading on a fictional organization: what to do first, and how a funding finding should change your reading.
Skill practised: Lateral reading: judging an unfamiliar publisher using independent sources rather than the publisher's own account. About 8 minutes.
Spot the Missing Context
Practice identifying the specific missing piece that makes a statistic or a quotation uninterpretable.
Skill practised: Identifying which specific omission makes a claim uninterpretable, rather than noting vaguely that context is missing. About 7 minutes.
Fact or Inference
Sort three statements about the same event into observation, inference, assumption, and value judgment.
Skill practised: Classifying statements as observation, inference, assumption, or value judgment, and splitting sentences that mix them. About 8 minutes.
Test Your Assumptions
Find the load-bearing assumption in two everyday organizational conclusions, and see why the obvious candidate is often not it.
Skill practised: Identifying which unstated assumption a conclusion actually depends on. About 8 minutes.
What Would Change Your Mind?
Practice naming the specific observation that would reduce your confidence, which is the fastest route out of a stuck disagreement.
Skill practised: Naming a specific, obtainable observation that would lower your confidence in a position you hold. About 8 minutes.
Using these with a group
The exercises work well in a session where participants complete one individually, then compare answers in threes. The disagreements are more instructive than the explanations. For a full session plan, see thecommunity discussion guideor the For Communities pages.
If you would rather read first, the lessons cover the same material in explanatory form, and each exercise links to its matching lesson.
Browse the exercises
Think Lab
Evaluate a Source
Practice lateral reading on a fictional organization: what to do first, and how a funding finding should change your reading.
Think Lab
Spot the Missing Context
Practice identifying the specific missing piece that makes a statistic or a quotation uninterpretable.
Think Lab
Fact or Inference
Sort three statements about the same event into observation, inference, assumption, and value judgment.
Think Lab
Test Your Assumptions
Find the load-bearing assumption in two everyday organizational conclusions, and see why the obvious candidate is often not it.
Think Lab
What Would Change Your Mind?
Practice naming the specific observation that would reduce your confidence, which is the fastest route out of a stuck disagreement.