List of Benchmarks for Thinking and Reasoning |
| Standard 3. | Effectively uses mental processes that are based on identifying similarities and differences |
| | Level I (Grade K-2) |
| | 1. | Identifies the similarities and differences between persons, places, things, and events using concrete criteria |
| | 2. | Classifies things in terms of number, shape, texture, size, weight, color, motion, sound, and behavior |
| | 3. | Finds simple patterns in the surrounding events and objects |
| | Level II (Grade 3-5) |
| | 1. | Understands that one way to make sense of something is to think how it is like something more familiar |
| | 2. | Knows when comparisons might not be fair because some characteristics are not the same |
| | 3. | Uses concrete (e.g., population, exports, ethnicity) and abstract characteristics (e.g., art) to compare people and places |
| | Level III (Grade 6-8) |
| | 1. | Compares consumer products on the basis of features, performance, durability, and cost, and considers personal tradeoffs |
| | 2. | Understands that an analogy not only contains some likenesses but also some differences |
| | 3. | Selects criteria or rules for category membership that are relevant and important |
| | 4. | Orders information and events chronologically, based on frequency of occurrence, or based on importance to a given criterion |
| | 5. | Articulates abstract relationships between existing categories of information |
| | 6. | Creates a table to compare specific abstract and concrete features of two items |
| | 7. | Compares different sources of information for the same topic in terms of basic similarities and differences |
| | 8. | Knows how relationships among ideas form the basis for valid analogies |
| | Level IV (Grade 9-12) |
| | 1. | Uses a comparison table to compare multiple items on multiple abstract characteristics |
| | 2. | Identifies abstract patterns of similarities and differences between information on the same topic but from different sources |
| | 3. | Identifies abstract relationships between seemingly unrelated items |
| | 4. | Identifies the qualitative and quantitative traits (other than frequency and obvious importance) that can be used to order and classify items |
