Critical thinking skills have a lot to do with succeeding. That's why many teachers keep Bloom's Taxonomy in mind when developing questions for class discussions, tests, journal prompts, and reader-response essays. Bloom's Taxonomy identifies six levels of cognitive thinking. At the basic level there's knowledge and comprehension. At the higher level, there's evaluation, synthesis, analysis and application. To help you sharpen those higher level, critical thinking skills, keep this word list in mind as you teach and ask questions throughout the day.