Students must learn the art and science of connecting knowledge, not merely regurgitating the teacher's connections. At this level, students find similarities and differences among the ideas and concepts they have already learned. To accomplish this objective, the teacher, text, or ancillary materials cannot compare and contrast the two types of accounting. Otherwise, students will merely memorize the comparison, and what started out as a comprehension objective will have been demoted to a knowledge objective. In summary, comprehension means translating ideas into everyday language and among the three business languages, interpreting and extrapolating ideas, and integrating material.
Comprehension is the gateway to critical thinking.
The problem solving, or application level, and exercise solving levels differ. At the exercise solving level, a student can correctly demonstrate a procedure when asked to do so. Problem solving demands more from the student. Given a problem that is foreign to the student, he will be able to select the appropriate procedure to use without guidance from the teacher, and then correctly use the procedure. Problem solving level objectives promote critical thinking.