Critical thinking as an exercise is ruined when applied to tasks who’s sole purpose is to ‘accumulate’ grades for other purposes which often negates critical thinking itself. We, in education, have truly lost sight of what critical thinking is and the application of the province wide ‘diploma’ exams is central to the misalignment. We have been ‘convinced’ by our betters that the questions require critical thinking to answer them. No they don’t, they require reading skill and discriminatory skills, but hardly require true critical thought. A critically thinking student, or teacher for that matter, would question the validity of the exam in the first place and not do it for the purpose authority supposes it is used. Just ask yourself what Kant would make of it all.