Then I have bad news for you.

Because the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal assessment is the most widely known assessment for measuring critical thinking skills and is most often used to select employees, therefore you will not find a practice test online.  In fact, if you've found a site that says it has the "real" questions to the Watson-Glaser, save your money...the site is a fraud.  We have a full-time team devoted to scouring the web to ensure that the questions in the assessment are not leaked.

The Watson-Glaser is a measure of cognitive ability, so there is really nothing you can do in a short period of time to practice the test and increase your scores anyway.  

The best way to prepare for the assessment is to clear plenty of time (at least 30-45 minutes), make sure your environment is free of distractions, and read all of the questions carefully.  

The assessment itself is made up of 40 questions and measures your skills in thinking, reasoning, and intelligence.  What you can expect are questions that measure your ability to understand:

• A strong versus weak argument
• Relavent versus irrelevant data
• Whether or not the conclusion follows from the data given
• Wheter or not there is sufficient information to make a conclusion
• What assumptions were made

The My Thinking Styles™ assessment helps you learn the thinking styles you use most often in life to make decisions, solve problems, and innovate.  Learning about your thinking style will help you not only understand the strengths you bring to the table because of your brain's natural way of considering information, but also your blindspots.  

For instance, if you favor a "Timely" thinking style you may rush to judgement in order to meet a deadline even though a better solution/idea was possible.  
With the free basic My Thinking Styles™ report, you will learn about whether your thinking style is:

• Analytical- Clear thinking, orderly, and rational
• Inquisitive- Curious, alert, and interested in the surrounding world
• Insightful- Prudent, humble, reflective and strategic
• Open-Minded- Intellectually fair-minded and tolerant
• Systematic- Conceptual, process-oriented, and intuitive
• Timely- Efficient, reliable and responsive
• Truth-Seeking-  Independent, tough-minded, and skeptical

After you receive your free basic My Thinking Styles™ report, if you'd like to learn more you can download Now You're Thinking! for your Kindle, iPad, or nook for only $9.99 at Amazon.com to see examples of how your thinking style operates in every day situations.  (The print copy is available for pre-order and will be released on September 12th, 2011)

Now You're Thinking! will help you dive further into your preferred thinking style and help you learn to maximize your thinking skills. Learn the questions to ask yourself when presented with a difficult situation to ensure that you're not limiting your range of options.  Also, the book presents practical tips for better decision making through the RED Model of Critical Thinking. 

Get started on the path to better thinking now with the My Thinking Styles™ assessment.  

What is your Thinking Style?

My husband is a gamer so I asked him to tell me about Portal 2 (the newest version of the game), and 3 hours later I was still playing beside him and exercising my problem solving skills.
Watch the video below to get an idea of how the strategy-based game works:

Playing this game challenged my ability to think creatively and strategically.  I found it to be a real mental exercise in problem solving.  The 2-player version of the game adds the challenges of communication, collaboration, and cooperation to the game.  

It is almost ironic that I found this critical thinking game while searching for a book about improving your thinking ability.  I was taken off of my intended path, but discovered a really great brain exercise.  Thinking and mental agility activities don't always have to be stuffy or involve practicing Socratic questioning.  In the 3 hours my husband and I spent playing the game we used so many important problem solving techniques that are used in every day life situations.  

• We initially assessed the situation to locate any tools, clues, or challenges.
• We clarified the end goal.
• We brainstormed multiple possible solutions.
• We used trial and error when the solution was not obvious.
• We asked questions like "What have I missed?" and "Can we look at this situation from a different angle?"

As a result, individuals with dyslexia struggle to distinguish letters and words as quickly as individuals without the learning disability.  Dyslexia affects as much as 5-10% of the world population, and educators have learned to modify their teaching style to help their students.

However, Christian Boer may have revolutionized the world for people struggling with dyslexia.  He has created a new font that makes small adjustments to each letter that helps illuminate the differences between similar letters.  

Watch the video below to learn more about the new font "Dyslexie":

Instead of trying to re-train the brain, Christian Boer just re-designed familiar fonts to make the letters more identifiable.  The University of Twente found that dislexics made fewer errors when reading the Dyslexie font than a typical typeface.  

Sometimes thinking differently and making the smallest changes can make the biggest difference.

What problems are you trying to solve today?  

For George Davison and the 250 employees of Davison, the environment is key to their creative thinking.  Davison has created over 900 products seen in stores worldwide.  They have invented everything from The Meatball Baker to a Portable Explosive Detector, and their products can be found at Walmart, Skymall, QVC, Sears, Cabella's, Lowe's, Home Depot and many more well-known stores. 

While on a family trip to Disney World, George Davison realized that during the trip many of the problems he'd been struggling with in the office seemed to have new solutions when he was inspired by the world around him.  He believed that the change in atmosphere made a big difference in his creative process.  So, he headed back to the office and invented Inventionland!

Inventionland is the Willy Wonka of design factories.  The staff don't work in cubicles or corner offices.  They work in the hull of a ship, a race car track, a castle, or a tree house. Check out these pictures from DailyMail and see more pictures from the office here. 

In the book "Now You're Thinking" the authors suggest that when presented with a difficult problem or situation "If you can, get some space or take a walk. A change in the scenery can have a tremendous impact on your ability to think through a situation."

Just imagine if that walk/change of scenery included a "house made of a shoe" or candy inspired bungalo! Kudos to George Davison and the Inventionland creators for reminding us that sometimes to change your thinking, you must change your scenery. 

Where do you go to think creatively?

Watch a timelapse video showing the building of Inventionland below.

Requirements:

• 3 to 5 years experience in the field
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills
• Excellent analytical and decision-making abilities
• Ability to manage multiple tasks to completion within established deadlines
• Detail oriented

So how do companies realistically measure these competencies?

The first two are easy. Look at the candidate's resume and interview them.

Requirements 4 & 5 are harder to measure, but achievable. You can use a behavioral interview question such as “Describe a project that was very challenging but you successfully completed it on time. Also tell me how you tracked the project to keep everyone in sync.”

It’s the 3rd requirement that companies fail to measure well. And this is why so many management-level hires don’t work out in my opinion. There are many gifted programmers, accountants, salespeople and other individual contributors that can hide their decision making inabilities while focused on task execution. But when they’re asked to manage the task (or a budget), they underperform. Maybe they’re not comfortable analyzing data or they take too long to make a decision because they have trouble evaluating arguments and picking out the important points.

Participant feedback in our webcasts shows 9 out of 10 companies don’t have a way to assess or develop critical thinking and decision-making skills. This is a huge problem for growing companies that are constantly identifying high potential employees and slotting them into management roles.

So how do you know if someone is a good thinker? Have candidates take the Watson-Glaser critical thinking test and you’ll know how they make decisions. Can they see the facts within a controversial issue? Can they avoid showing personal bias when judging an idea or a conclusion?

If your favorite candidate doesn’t score well, but you still want to hire them, you can put them on a development plan with a Boot Camp or access to Critical Thinking University.

Identifying and developing better thinkers in your organization isn’t easy, but it’s easier than you may think.

After being turned down several times, he zoned in on the shiny, engraveable dog tags on the counter, and this is the conversation that transpired:

Child (very dramatically):  "Mom, we almost forgot the tag thing."

Mom:  "No, we don't need a tag, because Bailey already has one.  Remember?"

Child:  "But what if he loses it?"

Mom:  "Then we will have to replace it, but we don't need to buy one today."

Child (unthwarted):  "But what about MY tag?"

Mom (semi-amused): "You don't wear a collar, so you don't need a tag."

Child (now very excited): "Oh, we forgot a collar too!!!"

Mom:  "No, children don't wear collars or dog tags.  Only pets wear those in case they get lost."

Child:  "But what if I get lost?"

Mom:  "You won't get lost."

Child:  "But I might."

Mom:  "Well, that's why we taught you your full name, address and phone number.  Then, if you get lost you can tell an adult and they will bring you home safely to us."

(The child then rattled off all of his personal information, and the mom looked quite proud).

Child:  "But what if I forgot them?"

Mom:  "You won't.  That's why we practice them so often."

Child (after hesitating for a moment):  "But, what if I can't talk?"

Mom:  "Why wouldn't you be able to talk?"

Child:  "Well, if I was eating I wouldn't be able to talk."

Mom:  "Well, then you would tell them after you finished chewing."

Child:  "But what if I was REALLY hungry?"

..............

At that point, my cashier finished ringing up my purchase so I didn't hear the mother's answer to his inquiry, but I found the whole conversation so amusing!  I almost wanted to buy him a tag just to reward him for his creative thinking.  I also loved that the mother (though clearly exhausted with the conversation) never said "because I said so."  She didn't discourage his line of questioning, and answered each question logically.

This is how we build the great thinkers of tomorrow.  Some day that little boy will be sitting in a boardroom, on a battle field, or in the White House asking "What if" because no one ever told him "because I said so."

How have you had a similar conversation with your children lately?

Now You're Thinking!

While intellect is an undisputed asset in the workplace, the ability to apply brainpower to make well-reasoned judgments and draw accurate conclusions cannot be assumed. Most of us have had the experience of working with an incredibly bright individual who can regurgitate every morsel of learned knowledge or breeze through cognitive ability tests, and yet when confronted with a complex problem that requires careful and logical reasoning, their horsepower is rendered paralyzed.

How is that possible? The answer is simple; intellect is only one component of critical thinking. Although scores on the Watson-Glaser have a positive relationship with cognitive ability, the additional information obtained by measuring critical thinking provides insight into an individual’s ability to put brainpower into practice. Specifically, critical thinking involves:

• Attitudes that enhance one’s ability to recognize the existence of problems and an acceptance of the general need for evidence in support of what is asserted to be true.
• Knowledge of the nature of valid inferences, abstractions, and generalizations in which the weight or accuracy of different kinds of evidence are logically determined, and
• Skills in employing and applying the above attitudes and knowledge.

She told me about a company that was having trouble with their Packaging Department.  The company started using old newspapers to wrap their delicate items before shipping.  Using old newspapers helped them save money (because the newspapers were donated) and helped lessen the impact on the environment.

However, they realized that their employees' productivity slowed once they transitioned from using plain brown wrapping paper to the old newspapers.  It turned out the employees were reading the newspaper as they used it for wrapping.

So, they brainstormed ways to keep the newspapers, but remove the problem of reduced productivity.  They exercised a brainstorming technique called "suspension of judgement" which meant that every idea was worth considering, no matter how silly it may sound.  The question became "how do we stop employees from reading the newspapers while they wrap the products?"  Ideas included dying the newspapers, hiring non-English speakers, and dimming the lights in the warehouse.

In the end, the idea that seemed the most surprising became the perfect solution.  Someone suggested that they blindfold employees.  While blindfolding probably wouldn't go over well with the employees, the idea made them realize that they hadn't considered hiring individuals who were visually impaired.  The company ended up hiring individuals who were blind and productivity instantly skyrocketed. 

This is such a great example of creative and critical thinking.  This company was able to "think differently" by considering every possible solution to the problem. 

I was reminded of this story when I watched the following video on Ted.com this evening.  Some people might think it is impossible for blind people to drive, but this company is choosing to think differently about how to put visually-impaired individuals behind the wheel.

How can you think differently about a challenge you're working on today?

Here are six ways organizations can improve their performance with the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal:

• Screen applicants for management positions. If you’re hiring a manager in any field or a C-level executive, they must be great thinkers first and foremost. This will save you money sifting through resumes and interviewing unqualified candidates that have great technical and people skills but lack the ability to make critical decisions or set a strategy.

• Predict performance. High Watson-Glaser scores correlate with good analysis and problem-solving skills, good judgment and decision-making, and good overall job performance. Critical thinking ability is more predictive of success than personality.

• Assess candidates for working virtually. Virtual workers make a lot of independent decisions and you want to make sure they are good at evaluating online information and accurately assessing situations without the advantage of being face to face.

• Know the abilities of your current workforce. Watson-Glaser scores can help you make promotion decisions, create development plans for high potentials, and see if a department has the make-up to tackle a new challenge.

• Hire better salespeople. Salespeople and customer service agents are entrusted with representing your company and products. Good critical thinkers are good at recommending the right product and thinking through all the issues before responding to customer complaints and questions.

• Become a thought-based organization. It may sound obvious, but you need to promote better thinking just like you promote honesty, hard work, and fiscal responsibility. Organizations that have good critical thinkers are laying the foundation for higher levels of innovation, problem solving, and creativity – the competencies that will help you create real value in your market.