What are the two main components of critical thinking?

Active thinking: the ability to recognize the most efficient path to the correct solution, rather than time-consuming trial and error. Pattern recognition: the ability to find the correct approach to a problem from a limited set of practice exercises. Paraphrasing: the ability to synthesize a long word problem into a shorter and concise sentence and to translate data and information into a known framework or equation. Attention to detail: the ability to separate signal from noise and to know which keywords in a problem will allow you select the correct issue and solution.