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Logical Fallacies

Instructions:

Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
If you are not ready to take this test, you can study here.
Match each statement with the correct term.
Don't refresh. All questions and answers are randomly picked and ordered every time you load a test.

This is a study tool. The 3 wrong answers for each question are randomly chosen from answers to other questions. So, you might find at times the answers obvious, but you will see it re-enforces your understanding as you take the test each time.

1. Because of the possibility of a terrorist hijacking or mechanical failure - flying on a plane is too dangerous and should be avoided altogether.
Scare Tatics Example
Hasty Generalization
Red Herring Example
Either/Or.

2. Either you support the president in everything he says and does or you are not a patriotic American
Either/Or. Example
Faulty Causality Example
Dogmatism
Appeals to False Authority

3. You can't give me a C - I'm an A student.
Faulty Analogy Example
Begging the Question EX.
Hasty Generalization Example
Begging the Question Example

4. If you restrict my right to say whatever I want however I want this is the beginning of totalitarianism in America.
Non sequitur
Non sequitur Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Slippery Slope Example

5. The conclusion that the writer should prove is validated within the claim. The author assumes as true they very claim that is disputed - in a circular argument.
Red herring Example
Begging the Question
Either/Or.
Sentimental Appeals. Ex

6. Either you worship God or you worship Satan.
Either/Or. Example
Red Herring Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex

7. Filthy and polluting coal should be banned.
Red Herring Example
Either/Or. Example
Begging the Question
Begging the Question Example

8. American students' relatively poor performance in foreign language and geography examinations means that they should be subjected to regular standardized tests in these two areas each year throughout their mandatory period of schooling.
Non sequitur Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Equivocation
Dogmatism Example

9. I can't be guilty of embezzlement; I'm an honest person.
Slippery Slope
Dogmatism
Equivocation Example
Begging the Question Example

10. This argument gives a lie an honest appearance - by insisting on What is only partially or formally true.
Ad hominem
Either/Or.
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Equivocation

11. Everyone else is displaying a flag - or a support our troops sticker on their car - therefore - you should too.
Appeals to False Authority Example
Ad hominem
Bandwagon appeal
Bandwagon Appeal Example

12. This is a diversionary tactic that avoid key issues - often by avoiding opposing arguments rather than addressing them.
Slippery Slope Example
Either/Or. Example
Slippery Slope
Red Herring

13. Everyone else is going out and getting drunk tonight - so you should too.
Red Herring Example
Scare Tatics
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Appeals to False Authority

14. She is feminist; she must hate men.
Dogmatism
Non sequitur Example
Red herring Example
Red Herring

15. The administration closed the smoking court in our school at the end of the last year - and fights among students have gone down his year; therefore - closing the smoking court caused the reaction in fights among students.
Faulty Causality Example
Scare Tatics Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Ad hominem Example

16. This is an attack on the character of a person rather than her/his opinions or arguments.
Red herring Example
Ad hominem Example
Ad hominem
Straw Man

17. Students in kindergarten at Jefferson Elementary school did better when given milk and cookies than when not; therefore students at UWEC will do better too if they are given milk and cookies in class.
Faulty Analogy Example
Sentimental Appeals Example
Either/Or. Example
Hasty Generalization

18. There's no way a man could love a man or a woman love a woman as much as a man and woman love each other.
Sentimental Appeals
Begging the Question Example
Dogmatism Example
Hasty Generalization Example

19. This is a conclusion that oversimplifies the argument by reducing it only to two sides or choices.
Either/Or.
Either/Or. Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Begging the Question EX.

20. I don't support the President's foreign policy; look at the disastrous way he has taken care of our domestic economy.
Faulty Analogy Example
Faulty Causality Example
Red herring Example
Dogmatism Example

21. This fallacy of argument recommends a course of action on the grounds that everyone else is following the same path.
Hasty Generalization
Hasty Generalization Example
Bandwagon appeal
Begging the Question EX.

22. You can't trust jim to do a good job as student body president; he doesn't dress with an up-to-date sense of style.
Bandwagon appeal
Appeals to False Authority Example
Red Herring Example
Non sequitur

23. This logical fallacy proposes that there are simply cannot be another possible way of making sense of and engaging with an issue but the one you represent.
Red herring Example
Dogmatism
Begging the Question Example
Equivocation Example

24. Because of the possibility of poisoning of Halloween candy by some people who give it out to trick or treaters - communities should ban trick-or-treating.
Either/Or. Example
Equivocation Example
Ad hominem Example
Scare Tatics Example

25. Person: A we should liberalize the laws one beer B: No any society with unrestricted access to intoxicants loses its work ethic and goes only for immediate gratification.
Sentimental Appeals Example
Straw Man Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Hasty Generalization Example

26. This is a conclusion based on insufficient evidence. In other words - you are rushing to a conclusion before you have all the relevant facts.
Hasty Generalization
Slippery Slope Example
Slipper Slop Example
Hasty Generalization Example

27. This argumentative fallacy in which the rhetor frames an issue in terms of exaggerated threats or dangers.
Non sequitur
Dogmatism Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Scare Tatics

28. My friend - who is serving in infantry in Iraq - tells me that the government has a secret plan for how to win the war that they won't release until after the election - and because he is my friend and I like and respect him - this must be true.
Appeals to False Authority Example
Begging the Question EX.
Faulty Analogy
Faulty Causality Example

29. It has been scientifically proven that people need to drink a certain amount of water every day to keep healthy. Water is liquid and so is beer. Therefore people should be able to substitute beer for water - drinking beer each day as doctors recommen
Faulty Analogy Example
Ad hominem Example
Non sequitur
Slippery Slope Example

30. There's no way that anyone can argue that abortion is anything other than murder.
Straw Man
Dogmatism Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Equivocation

31. Here's what I think about what you have written: anyone who opposes the death penalty for murder is a criminal at heart.
Ad hominem Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Red herring Example
Slippery Slope Example

32. Britney Spears says that George W. Bush has got a great plan for the economy - and so therefore I am supporting him because I trust what she has to say.
Appeals to False Authority Example
Slippery Slope Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Non sequitur Example

33. If we let homosexual couple live on our street before you know it our neighborhood will start to become like Greenwich Village in New York or the Castro District in San Francisco.
Dogmatism
Slippery Slope Example
Scare Tatics
Equivocation Example

34. Green Peace's strategies aren't effective because they are all dirty - lazy hippies.
Hasty Generalization Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Ad hominem Example
Non sequitur Example

35. We can either stop using cars or destroy the earth.
Ad hominem Example
Either/Or. Example
Scare Tatics
Hasty Generalization Example

36. The level of mercury in seafood may be unsafe - but what will fishers do to support their families?
Hasty Generalization Example
Red herring Example
Non sequitur
Faulty Causality Example

37. This sort of argument relies on the faulty assumption that because one event follows another - the second necessarily causes the first
Begging the Question Example
Faulty Causality
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Slipper Slop Example

38. I knew a gay guy who was not very masculine; this just goes to show that gay guys are more effeminate than straight men.
Slippery Slope Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Non sequitur Example
Faulty Causality Example

39. The writer suggest that readers should listen and follow what someone has to say about something that he or she is in fact not a credible - reliable authority on.
Hasty Generalization
Appeals to False Authority
Dogmatism Example
Straw Man

40. Relying on manipulatively heart-warming or heart-wrenching appeals to emotion to win support for what has not been otherwise rationally justified.
Scare Tatics Example
Sentimental Appeals
Hasty Generalization Example
Ad hominem Example

41. Even though it's only the first day - I can tell this is going to be a boring course.
Begging the Question EX.
Hasty Generalization Example
Slippery Slope Example
Non sequitur

42. In this case the writer forms an argument which leaves out a necessary portion in a logical sequence - seeming to suggest a logical connection when in fact one does not exist.
Non sequitur Example
Non sequitur
Red Herring Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex

43. I did not have sex with that woman(if by sex you mean penile-vaginal intercourse). (from bill clinton in relation of the nature of his relationship with monica lewinsky)
Equivocation Example
Begging the Question
Slippery Slope
Straw Man

44. In listening to what you have to say I have this to say in reply: only an idiot would argue for pursuing a peaceful solution to this conflict.
Ad hominem Example
Scare Tatics Example
Straw Man Example
Red herring Example

45. I gave you everything i had to give to you(right then and there when you asked me - but of course everything I could have given you if I took into account what I maintain elsewhere.)
Equivocation Example
Red Herring
Hasty Generalization Example
Begging the Question

46. This involves drawing an analogy that is based upon faulty equations or identifications of terms. The writer makes a comparisons between two objects which is either inaccurate or inconsequential.
Straw Man Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Faulty Analogy
Equivocation

47. That boy scout made an old lady's day by visiting and entertaining her in her nursing home; we should give generously to the boy scouts as a result.
Red herring Example
Ad hominem Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex

48. I drank bottled water and now I am sick - so the water must have made me sick.
Bandwagon appeal
Either/Or. Example
Faulty Causality Example
Begging the Question

49. If we can Hummers because they are bad for the environment eventually the government will ban all cars - so we should not ban hummers.
Slipper Slop Example
Equivocation Example
Equivocation Example
Ad hominem

50. This move oversimplifies an opponents' view point and then attacks that hollow argument. This opponents position is misrepresented as being more extreme than it actually is - so it becomes easier to refute.
Hasty Generalization Example
Straw Man
Faulty Causality
Appeals to False Authority