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Grade 11 Challenge: Spot the Bias in the Claim Worksheet with Answers

Grade 11 (US) · Year 12 (UK) · Class 11 (India) · English

Unit 7: Going FurtherCritical Reading ChallengeChallenge

Reading headlines and ads critically: survivorship bias, correlation vs causation, sampling bias, base rates and cherry-picking. This free high school worksheet has 12 questions and a full answer key. Print it or save it as a PDF — every answer is checked by code, not guessed.

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Challenge: Spot the Bias in the Claim

Grade 11 · English

Score___ / 12

Name

Class

Date

Learning goal: Critical Reading Challenge

Directions: Read each question carefully and write your answer on the line.

Example

"Our toothpaste is 37.62% more effective" — with no study, sample or comparison given. What is this called?

Answer: false precision

  1. 1

    Planes returning from battle were covered in bullet holes on the wings, so engineers planned to armour the wings. Why might the engines need armour instead?

  2. 2

    A shop marks a jacket "Was $400, now $199", making $199 feel cheap even though the jacket never sold at $400. What bias does this use?

  3. 3

    A sports drink ad shows only the three weeks when sales went up and hides the rest of the year. What is this called?

  4. 4

    "This pill cuts your risk of a rare illness by 50%!" — from 2 in 10 000 to 1 in 10 000. What misleading choice of numbers is this?

  5. 5

    "Every famous app founder dropped out of college — so dropping out makes you more likely to succeed." Which bias ignores all the dropouts who failed?

  6. 6

    A fund advertises that its best 10 investment funds all beat the market — but it quietly closed the 40 that did badly. What bias is this?

  7. 7

    "Ice-cream sales and drownings rise together, so ice cream causes drowning." What hidden factor explains both?

  8. 8

    "Nine out of ten dentists recommend our gum" — the dentists could choose several brands, and 90% also picked rivals. What is misleading?

  9. 9

    A survey asks "Don't you agree the unfair new tax should be scrapped?" What is wrong with the question?

  10. 10

    A test for a rare disease is 99% accurate, so a positive result means you almost certainly have it. What does this ignore?

  11. 11

    "Cities with more firefighters have more fire damage, so firefighters cause damage." What error is this?

  12. 12

    "After the new mayor took office, crime fell — so the mayor's policies worked." Crime had been falling for ten years before. What error is this?

How did I do?

Teacher's comments

Free printable worksheets with answer keys · aethelsystems.com/worksheets/english/11/challenge_bias_detective

Answer key (click to show)
  1. 1.survivorship bias / planes hit in the engines never returned
  2. 2.anchoring
  3. 3.cherry-picking
  4. 4.relative risk instead of absolute risk
  5. 5.survivorship bias
  6. 6.survivorship bias
  7. 7.hot weather / a confounding variable
  8. 8.cherry-picking / misleading statistic
  9. 9.loaded question / leading question
  10. 10.base rate neglect / the base rate
  11. 11.correlation is not causation / false cause
  12. 12.post hoc / false cause

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Guides for teaching Challenge: Spot the Bias in the Claim

7 Reading Comprehension Strategies Every Student Should UsePredict, question, visualize, summarize and more — what good readers do automatically, and how to practise each one.Literary Devices: 20 Examples Every Student Should KnowSimile, metaphor, personification, irony and more — each with a clear definition, an example, and a quick test for telling similar devices apart.

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