A critical student is one who does not accept information at face value without first examining it in detail and from different angles or perspectives. Students at first year university level are expected to not only maintain a high level of academic performance, but also, to think, form judgments and draw conclusions, to argue or discuss ideas and back them up with reasons, to read and look at the possible views, and to listen with an open mind (Marshall and Rowland, 1998). These prospects can not be achieved unless a student reads, thinks and writes critical. I believe the high level of expectations, are set by universities, of that students need to think and perform critical, to succeed in their chosen studies.
             For students to maintain a high level of academic performance students must need to read critical. Reading critical requires students to apply context in a reading strategy, read with a purpose or for a purpose, and be aware of the language used and for what reason. Context can be defined as "the situational, cultural, or historical set of circumstances out of which a text grows" (Elkins, 1999), for example, listing the characteristics and even describing the context. When reading with a purpose or even for a purpose, there are many rhetorical strategies available to writers, but every piece of writing is motivated by a major purpose or set of purposes. "If you determine what an author wants to achieve and why, you can then measure how well an author has achieved those goals" (Elkins, 1999). Student may, for example, attempt to distinguish between 'you' the reader's purpose and 'his/her' the author's purpose. When reading, students need to be aware of the author's language by learning strategies to help become more conscious of the words authors choose, the associations of those words, pattern of words, and common figures of speech. "Word play", means, "analys...