The professor teaching the course did a good job explaining the concepts behind deductive reasoning. There are however some minor things that annoyed me:

(1) Some of the definitions could have been more formal. Sure, you can describe a category as a "collection of things", but a more rigid approach is useful for the more mathematically inclined.

(2) Wrong answers in the quizzes are not always explained. You just see "You should not have selected this answer." Okay, but WHY NOT? The learning experience would be better if an explanation would always be given.

(3) Some parts are incomplete. For example, the topic on immediate categorical inferences only discusses conversion. It would have been nice to discuss the obversion and contrapositive inference as well. Another example is the lack of the explicit treatment of the biconditional introduction and elimination argument, while the conjunction and disjunction introduction and elimination methods are fully covered.

(4) The time spent on the course is short in comparison to Think Again I. For example, week 3 contains less than an hour's effort. Week 2 is also rather short. Instead of cutting it short, useful concepts such as the square of opposition, which is pretty much the basis of the relations between categorical propositions, could have been discussed.

(5) At the end of one of the lectures, three links are given for further practice. One of the links didn't work.

(6) Some quizzes deal with material that is discussed in later sections.

(7) The exam was unbalanced. One lecture was about addressing the validity of an argument containing an unknown/ foreign word. The exam had many many questions about this (IMHO) less relevant subject.

All in all: the professor gets a 4.5, the content gets a 3, which makes a 4-.

The course teaches how to use Truth tables and Venn diagrams can help analyze arguments. However the explanations are convoluted and some of the examples are overly contrived.

Explains very simple things in a complicated and repetitive way.

You can skip this one!

It is absolutely terrible and i don't think it lives up to it's title and expectations. The exams are disconnected from the rest of the course, it will waste a lot of time getting through. Yes! it's a waste honestly. Prof. Ram is a nice fellow but sometimes he's just not able to deliver as much information as can be spread in a 30 min lecture. 1 stars for his efforts only!

This entire series was informative, engaging, and fun, and the thinking skills taught are so valuable.

Pros: I found the content very interesting. And there's an analogy with digital design (Boolean Logic) where F=1 and T=0 and so &=AND gate; V=OR gate; biconditional=XOR gate. Pretty useful content. Shorter 4week course. Well explained.

Cons: The exam is very hard. I dont see whats the point of making many & and V and conditional and biconditional together like a huge formula, it takes too much time the calculation. On Venn Diagrams when starts to become shaded and with crosses at the same time (using only 2 categories) I guess is not explained very well on the lectures.

Comparison with MOdule I: I found this module less applicable on the daily-life, more theoretical (but easier).

It's worthy every time anyway.

It's a pity I have to rate this just a 3. In some ways the course is outstanding but the final test is a lottery for students who do not have a maths background. I would say do the course anyway it is a great introduction but the tests are poorly thought out.

That seems like a real trashing but I did say "do the course anyway" the teacher Ram Neta has a great sense of humour and makes the subject matter come alive with very good examples most of the time.

I am continuing with the other course units having just scraped a pass due to some of the material in the final test not being in the coursework.

I thought the course did a pretty poor job of explaining the 'dry' part of the course: the truth tables and conjunction writing.

During the lectures, only little time was taken to explain on how to do the questions. So I ended up doing the final quiz many times, just to understand what the questions were supposed to mean.

It felt a bit like listening to a painter talking about how to paint, but never actually see how a painting is painted, or practice how to use the materials and the quiz was "make a painting".

I am sharing my disappointment of the care taken by the lecturer in preparing for his lectures. He is obviously an expert in Logic, and must be very intelligent to hold his academic position - so I have given the course a pass mark.

For example his use of Venn Diagrams was sloppy. I had already worked out that I could use Venn Diagrams before he introduced the idea, and I had sketched unambiguous diagrams to help me visualize the use of quantifiers. The lecturer just used an X to mark the intersection between two sets. This is an imprecise way of showing the intersection, and he could have easily drew different Venn Diagrams that unambiguously showed the various quantifiers. Also why did the lecturer choose to sit in a crappy little room, and not even take time to remove distracting objects from the desk behind him etc. To me he sent a signal that he couldn't even take time to arrange for a appropriate background nor design clear visual aids for his students. There are other Logic courses, and I will try them and hope they are better prepared and more respectful of students.

Simple logical concepts that are expanded to confusing matrices and truth tables/venn diagrams. I guess one has to be very mathematically inclined to full appreciate the deductive reasoning part but this course should not be for the average audience. Also note that there are disjoints between what was taught and the quiz questions, and there are barely any explanations for the answers. 2 stars though for the effort in preparing this course.

The Course materials in themselves are really worthwhile and easily understandable. I can not give more than two stars though, as the final exam is nothing but torture. The questions are unintuitive and do not relate to the course material or any practical application whatsoever. Sadly, it is a required task to complete the specialization, otherwise, I would not have forced myself through it.

The final exam is impossible to complete succesfully. Everytime I retry it, its a more difficult version then the previous one. Its frustrating.

This course sharpened my analytical thinking. Exam was deceptively difficult but worth taking multiple times.

I found the course challenging but thoroughly enjoyable.

very very challenging and tasking course. beautiful !!

Not great. The last quiz had questions in a format that was never saw in the materials, so what would possible be evaluated in that case? And the clases were not nearly as good as the first part of this series.

Think Again II is not as good as the first course. Examples are pretty vague and hard to follow.

The content is amazing. The teachers are amazing. But the exam is the most terrible thing I have ever seen in this world. It is impossible to do and the most complicated thing I have ever seen. Most students fail this class. We can't even learn from our mistakes because the questions keep changing. I am so upset I wasted days on a class that is impossible to pass. This exam seriously has a negative impact on my mental health. This is not normal. I have never seen something so difficult even in real university programs.

The material in this course is well presented, though scarce at times. However it has its share of problems :

-little to no interaction from TA's or mentors in the forums

-the quizzes are often out of sync with the lectures

-the final exam has severe problems with questions (form not content).

In more detail, on the final exam, some of the questions don't even contain all the content to answer them. They can request multiple answers but have single question boxes and/or the reverse.

Material is dry, presentation is distracting with volume changes and unhelpful examples, not up to usual Coursera standards.

I think it's a good course, however, it focuses more on theoretical things rather than real life examples. I hope the next courses in this series have to do with more realistic experiences. I know that to learn the theory of anything is good to have a solid foundation but I don't see the point of knowing the theory if in the course is not really applied.

all along, it's my wish to study critical thinking. I was first nervous when i saw the "Think Again" at Duke University being offered through Coursera because it isn't free of charge, but when learning Think Again I & II, i realized that i made a right decision and choice to learn it as it had been my wish.

Both Walter and Ram are killing it at explaining this COMPLEX courses. SO GRATEFUL to Coursera for giving me the opportunity to learn from such talented people from outstanding universities.

Having completed both Think Again I and Think Again II, on with Think Again III!

I had never thought about arguments in this way before. It was super confusing to deal with language with truth tables (in a mathematical type equations). But I had fun none the less. I hope to keep practicing and implementing this in the future.

Really good course, the material and explanations are good, and even in some cases, resolving or understanding some ideas is challenging, you can get the idea with a little practice