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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. I can't be guilty of embezzlement; I'm an honest person.
Faulty Causality Example
Begging the Question Example
Non sequitur Example
Hasty Generalization

2. 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
Faulty Analogy
Equivocation Example
Straw Man

3. 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
Straw Man
Red Herring Example
Faulty Analogy

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

5. I don't support the President's foreign policy; look at the disastrous way he has taken care of our domestic economy.
Slippery Slope Example
Either/Or. Example
Red herring Example
Ad hominem Example

6. 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.
Ad hominem Example
Either/Or. Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Hasty Generalization Example

7. 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
Ad hominem Example
Slippery Slope
Slippery Slope Example

8. The level of mercury in seafood may be unsafe - but what will fishers do to support their families?
Red herring Example
Ad hominem
Either/Or. Example
Slippery Slope Example

9. Either you worship God or you worship Satan.
Either/Or. Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Hasty Generalization Example

10. Filthy and polluting coal should be banned.
Equivocation Example
Dogmatism Example
Begging the Question Example
Scare Tatics Example

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

12. There's no way that anyone can argue that abortion is anything other than murder.
Red herring Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Dogmatism Example
Ad hominem Example

13. 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.
Red herring Example
Ad hominem Example
Straw Man Example
Equivocation Example

14. 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
Hasty Generalization Example
Dogmatism Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Sentimental Appeals Example

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.
Begging the Question Example
Sentimental Appeals
Faulty Causality Example
Slippery Slope Example

16. This fallacy of argument recommends a course of action on the grounds that everyone else is following the same path.
Non sequitur Example
Scare Tatics Example
Bandwagon appeal
Bandwagon Appeal Example

17. 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.
Begging the Question
Sentimental Appeals
Faulty Causality Example
Begging the Question EX.

18. 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.
Ad hominem Example
Straw Man
Non sequitur
Equivocation

19. 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
Equivocation
Sentimental Appeals
Either/Or. Example

20. This argument gives a lie an honest appearance - by insisting on What is only partially or formally true.
Slippery Slope
Ad hominem Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Equivocation

21. We can either stop using cars or destroy the earth.
Either/Or. Example
Begging the Question EX.
Appeals to False Authority Example
Straw Man Example

22. I drank bottled water and now I am sick - so the water must have made me sick.
Scare Tatics
Faulty Causality Example
Begging the Question
Sentimental Appeals. Ex

23. 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.
Appeals to False Authority Example
Hasty Generalization
Slippery Slope
Sentimental Appeals 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.
Dogmatism
Faulty Causality Example
Scare Tatics Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex

25. She is feminist; she must hate men.
Non sequitur Example
Faulty Causality
Ad hominem Example
Slippery Slope Example

26. You can't give me a C - I'm an A student.
Scare Tatics Example
Faulty Causality Example
Scare Tatics Example
Begging the Question EX.

27. 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.
Dogmatism Example
Faulty Causality Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Ad hominem Example

28. 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.
Non sequitur Example
Begging the Question Example
Dogmatism
Equivocation Example

29. Relying on manipulatively heart-warming or heart-wrenching appeals to emotion to win support for what has not been otherwise rationally justified.
Faulty Causality
Begging the Question EX.
Sentimental Appeals
Ad hominem Example

30. 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
Straw Man Example
Dogmatism Example
Sentimental Appeals

31. 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.
Slippery Slope Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Either/Or. Example

32. 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
Faulty Causality
Ad hominem Example
Dogmatism Example

33. Everyone else is displaying a flag - or a support our troops sticker on their car - therefore - you should too.
Non sequitur Example
Ad hominem Example
Faulty Causality Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example

34. Even though it's only the first day - I can tell this is going to be a boring course.
Hasty Generalization
Faulty Analogy
Faulty Analogy Example
Hasty Generalization Example

35. 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
Hasty Generalization Example
Begging the Question Example
Begging the Question Example

36. This sort of argument relies on the faulty assumption that because one event follows another - the second necessarily causes the first
Dogmatism
Slipper Slop Example
Faulty Causality
Non sequitur

37. This argumentative fallacy in which the rhetor frames an issue in terms of exaggerated threats or dangers.
Ad hominem Example
Scare Tatics
Non sequitur Example
Slippery Slope Example

38. If you restrict my right to say whatever I want however I want this is the beginning of totalitarianism in America.
Dogmatism Example
Slippery Slope Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Either/Or.

39. 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
Scare Tatics
Faulty Analogy Example
Faulty Causality
Dogmatism Example

40. 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.
Hasty Generalization Example
Equivocation
Either/Or. Example
Faulty Analogy Example

41. This is a diversionary tactic that avoid key issues - often by avoiding opposing arguments rather than addressing them.
Red Herring
Appeals to False Authority Example
Non sequitur Example
Hasty Generalization Example

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

43. 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
Dogmatism
Scare Tatics Example
Red Herring

44. 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.
Equivocation Example
Either/Or. Example
Appeals to False Authority
Appeals to False Authority Example

45. 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
Begging the Question
Red Herring Example
Slippery Slope Example

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.
Faulty Analogy
Scare Tatics Example
Either/Or. Example
Bandwagon appeal

47. 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.
Slippery Slope Example
Non sequitur Example
Red Herring Example
Hasty Generalization Example

48. Everyone else is going out and getting drunk tonight - so you should too.
Appeals to False Authority
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Faulty Causality
Appeals to False Authority Example

49. Green Peace's strategies aren't effective because they are all dirty - lazy hippies.
Begging the Question Example
Non sequitur
Ad hominem Example
Slippery Slope Example

50. 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
Slippery Slope
Non sequitur Example
Begging the Question Example