Using knowledge and strategies to support conclusions is an example of which cognitive skill?

Using knowledge and strategies to support conclusions is an example of which cognitive skill?

• A. Analysis
• B. Interpretation
• C. Explanation
• D. Synthesis

Answer: (C)

Providing reasons and evidence to justify a conclusion is the skill being tested. Explaining involves showing how your knowledge and the strategies you used support the conclusion, making the reasoning clear and defensible. This is why this choice is the best fit. The other tasks describe different mental efforts: analyzing means breaking information into parts to understand structure, interpreting is about deriving meaning from information, and synthesizing involves combining ideas to form something new. Here, the emphasis is on articulating how the conclusion is supported, which is the core of explaining.

Providing reasons and evidence to justify a conclusion is the skill being tested. Explaining involves showing how your knowledge and the strategies you used support the conclusion, making the reasoning clear and defensible. This is why this choice is the best fit. The other tasks describe different mental efforts: analyzing means breaking information into parts to understand structure, interpreting is about deriving meaning from information, and synthesizing involves combining ideas to form something new. Here, the emphasis is on articulating how the conclusion is supported, which is the core of explaining.