Critical thinking questions are a great way to help you learn and get to the heart of many matters.
These fun critical thinking questions are what you should be asking if you want to learn more and challenge your own beliefs.
Questioning what you’ve read, what you’ve learnt and your own preconceptions is a useful way to remove your own ignorance on many topics.
As a child, we asked questions about critical thinking all the time. It’s how we learn right and wrong and a variety of other things. Curiosity and questioning what we know are some of the best ways to improve your knowledge.
Whether you want to use these questions with your students or to learn more yourself, they’ll help you develop a framework to learn more about almost anything.
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Critical Thinking Questions Examples
Critical thinking questions are easy to spot. They’re questions that are worded so you can take a more in-depth look at things.
They’re similar in nature to open-ended questions, in that it’s expected the person who’s being questioned will provide a substantive answer rather than a short one.
Here are a few examples so you get the idea:
- How do you know this?
- Why does it matter?
- What are the reasons for _____?
Critical Thinking Questions Starting With ‘What’
1. What do you think you would have done if you were the person in that position?
2. What did you think they meant when they said…?
3. What did you assume about them in the beginning that you were wrong about?
4. What do you think it meant when this happened…?
5. What did the evidence say about…?
6. What do you think would have happened if…?
7. What are your conclusions about…?
8. What do you think would have been a better ending to…?
9. What could have been a big twist in the story?
10. What do you think would have happened if…?
You might also like:
- Hardest questions to answer
- Ethical questions
- Philosophical questions
- Probing questions
- Questions that make you think
11. What were the strengths of this argument?
12. What do you think were the weaknesses about…?
13. What do you think that ___ meant?
You might also like: What if questions
14. What do you think made ___ do that?
15. What do you think the reasons are for it happening in that way?
16. What do you think would have changed if ___ did _?
17. What would have been a better option for…?
18. What do you think the problem was about…?
19. What do you think you could do to solve this problem?
20. What should have happened instead of…?
21. What do you think the biggest win about ___ is?
22. What do you think will happen when…?
23. What do you think that character’s motive was in the movie?
24. What makes you come to that idea?
25. What is the point of…?
26. What do you think you would say to ___ if you had the chance?
You might also like: Self-reflection questions
Questions For Critical Thinking Starting With ‘When’
27. When do you think that this became a problem?
28. When will you change your mind about…?
29. When do you think you will be ready to…?
30. When will you be able to tell if _ worked?
31. When is ___ ever acceptable?
32. When will be the right time to stop…?
33. When is the best time to start…?
34. When do you think the situation changed with…?
35. When will ___ ever happen?
36. When do you think you knew in the movie what the ending was going to be?
37. When will be the best time to have another think about…?
38. When shall we revisit…?
39. When did you realise that ___ hadn’t worked?
You might also like: Thought provoking questions
Critical Thinking Questions Starting With ‘How’
40. How do you feel about…?
41. How do you think _ could have been handled better?
42. How would you have responded to…?
43. How did you come to that conclusion about…?
44. How does doing ___ change…?
45. How would you feel if…?
46. How did you come to deciding…?
47. How do you think ___ might hurt..?
48. How else would you handle this in the future?
49. How do you think they ought to have responded to…?
50. How do you think you will feel when…?
51. How did this benefit you?
52. How would ___ benefit others?
Next: Mind blowing questions
53. How is this different from other situations?
54. How would you advise them to handle it in the future?
55. How do you think they will react when they find out…?
Critical Thinking Questions Starting With ‘Who’
56. Who will be affected when this happens?
57. Who is the person that you would call on for…?
58. Who do you think will be most impacted by…?
59. Who caused the problem in ___ this situation?
60. Who wrote…?
61. Who do you think is most likely to…?
62. Who do you think will most benefit from…?
63. Who do you think was the problem in ___ situation?
64. Who caused the most harm in…?
65. Who is responsible for…?
You might also like: Yes or no questions
66. Who do you think is the most crucial person for…?
67. Who would be the best person to call on for this problem?
68. Who can you count on …?
69. Who do you think would be best off staying out of…?
70. Who is the person you are most nervous about telling…?
71. Who was the happiest when they found out that…?
72. Who was the most important character in this story?
73. Who had the strongest argument for…?
74. Who do you feel was wrong in that situation?
75. Who would be the first person that you would tell about…?
Critical Thinking Questions Starting With ‘Why’
76. Why do you need to…?
77. Why do you think they chose to…?
78. Why do you think that ___ happened?
Next: Hypothetical questions
79. Why is it important to…?
80. Why do you think ___ is necessary?
81. Why do you think that they said?
82. Why do you think the author decided to add…?
83. Why is it a problem when…?
84. Why do we need to do…?
85. Why are you so…?
86. Why does this need to stop?
87. Why do you need to improve…?
88. Why do you think I am bringing this up…
89. Why do you think that ___ became a problem?
90. Why do you think it wasn’t rectified?
Critical Thinking Questions Starting With ‘Where’
91. Where has this happened before?
You might also like: Unanswerable questions
92. Where do you think we would be if…?
93. Where did the story begin to alter?
94. Where can we give our attention to…?
95. Where can you get more information about…?
96. Where do we need to improve?
97. Where would we find the solution for….?
98. Where did they find the solution?
99. Where do you think that ___ got complicated?
100. Where could we ask for help with…?
101. Where would you have done things differently?
102. Where would you seek answers to these problems?
103. Where do you think would have been the best place to stop?
104. Where would you advise we focus next time we…?
105. Where do you think it went wrong?
Critical Thinking Questions For Interviews
106. Tell me about a time you had to use your initiative to solve a problem
107. How would you handle a situation when you’ve noticed a superior makes an error?
108. What would you do if a colleague came to you with an unusual suggestion to improve the business?
109. Have you ever anticipated potential problems and stopped them before they became an issue?
110. How quickly do you make decisions?
111. How do you handle disagreements between colleagues?
112. Have you ever convinced managers or your superiors to take your approach on solving a problem?
113. How would you solve a disagreement between a customer and a colleague?
114. What would you do if a customer came to with an issue while you were talking to a colleague/superior?
115. What would you do if you had a deadline approaching you knew you wouldn’t be able to meet?
Looking For More Questions?
Existential Questions – Questions that will make you think about life, the universe and many other deep topics.
Trick Questions – If you want people to start thinking but in a fun way, these questions are perfect!
Tom is a travel writer and Co-Founder of Questions About Everything. He grew up in the UK and enjoys spending his time traveling to new places, supporting Liverpool FC, and blogging about his adventures. He spent two years teaching English in Barcelona and frequently utilized question games and conversation starters as part of his lesson plans. Learn more about Tom on our About page.