Look at the toy car.
Here’s an advert for this toy car.
Our ride-on electric car is the best model you’ll find in stores. It has a built-in music system with a USB connection so you can listen to your own songs.
Does this advert use facts or opinions?
You may have spotted that the first sentence uses an opinion.
Our ride-on electric car is the best model you’ll find in stores.
Adverts often use opinions to persuade you to buy their products.
An opinion gives us someone’s thoughts or beliefs about something.
The person writing this advert thinks their car is the best. Someone else might think another car is better.
The second sentence contained a fact:
It has a built-in music system with a USB connection so you can listen to your own songs.
Facts are statements that can be proven to be true.
Someone could check if the car really does have a built-in music system.
Turning Facts into Opinions
Be careful, as by adding a couple of words, we can turn a fact into an opinion.
It has an awesome built-in music system with a USB connection so you can listen to your own bopping tunes.
By adding the adjective awesome, we’ve added an opinion. Someone might think the music system is awesome but another person may not. We can’t prove that something is awesome to everybody.
In this activity, you’ll be on the hunt for facts and opinions based on a story you’ve read. Be careful to spot any opinions disguised as facts.