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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. She is feminist; she must hate men.
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Scare Tatics Example
Non sequitur
Non sequitur Example

2. 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.
Slipper Slop Example
Sentimental Appeals
Appeals to False Authority Example
Faulty Causality Example

3. 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.
Either/Or. Example
Equivocation Example
Red Herring Example
Appeals to False Authority

4. You can't give me a C - I'm an A student.
Appeals to False Authority Example
Scare Tatics Example
Begging the Question EX.
Faulty Analogy

5. 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.
Bandwagon appeal
Ad hominem Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Bandwagon Appeal Example

6. Either you worship God or you worship Satan.
Dogmatism
Either/Or. Example
Begging the Question Example
Begging the Question

7. This is a conclusion based on the premise that if A happens - then eventually through a series of small steps - through B -C -...X -Y -Z will happen - too basically equating A and Z.
Straw Man Example
Red Herring Example
Equivocation Example
Slippery Slope

8. If we can Hummers because they are bad for the environment eventually the government will ban all cars - so we should not ban hummers.
Bandwagon appeal
Slipper Slop Example
Begging the Question
Non sequitur Example

9. 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
Either/Or. Example
Faulty Analogy
Bandwagon Appeal Example

10. 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
Faulty Causality
Hasty Generalization Example
Either/Or.

11. Either you support the president in everything he says and does or you are not a patriotic American
Ad hominem Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Either/Or. Example
Straw Man

12. This is an attack on the character of a person rather than her/his opinions or arguments.
Ad hominem
Slippery Slope Example
Begging the Question
Non sequitur Example

13. 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
Red Herring
Straw Man
Either/Or.

14. We can either stop using cars or destroy the earth.
Slippery Slope Example
Ad hominem Example
Dogmatism
Either/Or. Example

15. There's no way that anyone can argue that abortion is anything other than murder.
Red Herring Example
Dogmatism Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Bandwagon Appeal Example

16. 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
Faulty Causality Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Scare Tatics

17. This sort of argument relies on the faulty assumption that because one event follows another - the second necessarily causes the first
Faulty Causality
Dogmatism Example
Straw Man
Straw Man Example

18. That celebrity is suffering a lot of pain and aguish after breaking p with his girlfriend and coming through drug and alcohol rehabilitation treatment; he is a role model for all of us - and needs us to support him by his albums and going to his movi
Sentimental Appeals Example
Slippery Slope Example
Straw Man
Appeals to False Authority Example

19. I can't be guilty of embezzlement; I'm an honest person.
Begging the Question Example
Bandwagon appeal
Equivocation Example
Faulty Causality Example

20. 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.
Sentimental Appeals
Slippery Slope
Slipper Slop Example
Non sequitur Example

21. I drank bottled water and now I am sick - so the water must have made me sick.
Begging the Question EX.
Straw Man Example
Red Herring Example
Faulty Causality Example

22. This is a conclusion based on insufficient evidence. In other words - you are rushing to a conclusion before you have all the relevant facts.
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Hasty Generalization
Ad hominem Example

23. If you restrict my right to say whatever I want however I want this is the beginning of totalitarianism in America.
Scare Tatics Example
Slippery Slope Example
Equivocation Example
Faulty Causality Example

24. Relying on manipulatively heart-warming or heart-wrenching appeals to emotion to win support for what has not been otherwise rationally justified.
Sentimental Appeals
Straw Man
Dogmatism Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example

25. 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.
Straw Man
Slippery Slope Example
Slipper Slop Example
Begging the Question Example

26. This argumentative fallacy in which the rhetor frames an issue in terms of exaggerated threats or dangers.
Appeals to False Authority Example
Scare Tatics
Appeals to False Authority
Ad hominem

27. 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.
Either/Or. Example
Faulty Causality Example
Slippery Slope Example
Non sequitur

28. 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.
Scare Tatics Example
Slippery Slope Example
Either/Or. Example
Hasty Generalization Example

29. 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.
Scare Tatics Example
Sentimental Appeals
Faulty Causality
Begging the Question

30. I don't support the President's foreign policy; look at the disastrous way he has taken care of our domestic economy.
Red herring Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Begging the Question Example
Ad hominem Example

31. 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.
Ad hominem Example
Sentimental Appeals
Appeals to False Authority Example
Red Herring Example

32. This argument gives a lie an honest appearance - by insisting on What is only partially or formally true.
Equivocation
Scare Tatics Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Red herring Example

33. 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.
Scare Tatics Example
Either/Or. Example
Scare Tatics
Sentimental Appeals. Ex

34. 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.)
Faulty Causality
Equivocation Example
Appeals to False Authority
Slippery Slope Example

35. 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.
Dogmatism
Equivocation
Appeals to False Authority Example
Sentimental Appeals Example

36. Filthy and polluting coal should be banned.
Faulty Causality Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Begging the Question Example
Hasty Generalization Example

37. 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.
Slippery Slope Example
Dogmatism Example
Either/Or. Example
Hasty Generalization

38. Because of the possibility of a terrorist hijacking or mechanical failure - flying on a plane is too dangerous and should be avoided altogether.
Begging the Question Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Scare Tatics Example
Appeals to False Authority Example

39. This is a conclusion that oversimplifies the argument by reducing it only to two sides or choices.
Sentimental Appeals Example
Equivocation
Either/Or.
Either/Or. Example

40. Green Peace's strategies aren't effective because they are all dirty - lazy hippies.
Appeals to False Authority
Scare Tatics
Ad hominem Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex

41. 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.
Ad hominem Example
Sentimental Appeals Example
Red Herring Example
Scare Tatics Example

42. 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.
Faulty Analogy
Appeals to False Authority Example
Slippery Slope Example
Dogmatism Example

43. Everyone else is going out and getting drunk tonight - so you should too.
Equivocation Example
Bandwagon appeal
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Straw Man Example

44. 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.
Hasty Generalization Example
Slippery Slope
Hasty Generalization
Straw Man Example

45. I knew a gay guy who was not very masculine; this just goes to show that gay guys are more effeminate than straight men.
Hasty Generalization Example
Red herring Example
Non sequitur Example
Faulty Analogy

46. 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)
Dogmatism Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Scare Tatics Example
Equivocation Example

47. A black family move into my neighborhood once - and they were financially quite well-off - better than we were; this proves that black people actually are economically equal to whites.
Appeals to False Authority
Begging the Question Example
Slippery Slope
Hasty Generalization Example

48. The level of mercury in seafood may be unsafe - but what will fishers do to support their families?
Faulty Causality
Scare Tatics
Red herring Example
Begging the Question

49. Everyone else is displaying a flag - or a support our troops sticker on their car - therefore - you should too.
Appeals to False Authority Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Faulty Analogy
Appeals to False Authority

50. This fallacy of argument recommends a course of action on the grounds that everyone else is following the same path.
Slipper Slop Example
Bandwagon appeal
Non sequitur Example
Appeals to False Authority Example