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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. This sort of argument relies on the faulty assumption that because one event follows another - the second necessarily causes the first
Ad hominem Example
Slippery Slope Example
Either/Or.
Faulty Causality

2. 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.
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Sentimental Appeals Example
Slippery Slope Example
Ad hominem Example

3. 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.
Either/Or. Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Red Herring Example
Straw Man

4. 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
Non sequitur
Scare Tatics Example
Hasty Generalization Example

5. 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.
Sentimental Appeals
Dogmatism Example
Slippery Slope Example
Red Herring Example

6. Filthy and polluting coal should be banned.
Begging the Question Example
Equivocation Example
Red Herring
Non sequitur

7. She is feminist; she must hate men.
Non sequitur Example
Sentimental Appeals Example
Bandwagon appeal
Dogmatism

8. 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.
Non sequitur
Slippery Slope Example
Begging the Question
Straw Man Example

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

10. 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.
Either/Or. Example
Slippery Slope
Hasty Generalization Example
Appeals to False Authority Example

11. 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
Ad hominem
Faulty Analogy Example

12. 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.
Slippery Slope
Ad hominem Example
Dogmatism Example
Straw Man Example

13. 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.
Non sequitur Example
Either/Or. Example
Sentimental Appeals Example
Appeals to False Authority

14. 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
Hasty Generalization Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Slippery Slope Example

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

16. Either you worship God or you worship Satan.
Either/Or. Example
Equivocation Example
Sentimental Appeals Example
Faulty Causality

17. This is a conclusion based on insufficient evidence. In other words - you are rushing to a conclusion before you have all the relevant facts.
Dogmatism Example
Begging the Question Example
Hasty Generalization
Faulty Analogy

18. I don't support the President's foreign policy; look at the disastrous way he has taken care of our domestic economy.
Scare Tatics Example
Scare Tatics Example
Red herring Example
Equivocation Example

19. This fallacy of argument recommends a course of action on the grounds that everyone else is following the same path.
Begging the Question EX.
Appeals to False Authority
Bandwagon appeal
Scare Tatics

20. 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
Hasty Generalization Example
Equivocation Example
Scare Tatics Example

21. 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
Either/Or. Example
Slipper Slop Example
Faulty Causality

22. 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
Non sequitur Example
Either/Or. Example
Begging the Question EX.

23. 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.
Bandwagon appeal
Ad hominem
Either/Or. Example
Hasty Generalization Example

24. Even though it's only the first day - I can tell this is going to be a boring course.
Hasty Generalization Example
Either/Or.
Ad hominem Example
Faulty Analogy Example

25. Relying on manipulatively heart-warming or heart-wrenching appeals to emotion to win support for what has not been otherwise rationally justified.
Either/Or. Example
Sentimental Appeals
Straw Man Example
Red herring Example

26. 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.
Begging the Question Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Red herring Example
Dogmatism Example

27. 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.
Either/Or. Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Faulty Analogy
Scare Tatics Example

28. There's no way that anyone can argue that abortion is anything other than murder.
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Dogmatism
Dogmatism Example
Hasty Generalization Example

29. 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.)
Scare Tatics Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Sentimental Appeals
Equivocation Example

30. 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
Slipper Slop Example
Begging the Question EX.
Bandwagon Appeal Example

31. 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.
Scare Tatics Example
Ad hominem Example
Dogmatism Example
Either/Or. Example

32. I can't be guilty of embezzlement; I'm an honest person.
Appeals to False Authority Example
Begging the Question Example
Sentimental Appeals Example
Hasty Generalization

33. I drank bottled water and now I am sick - so the water must have made me sick.
Equivocation Example
Non sequitur Example
Faulty Causality Example
Equivocation Example

34. The level of mercury in seafood may be unsafe - but what will fishers do to support their families?
Begging the Question Example
Sentimental Appeals
Red herring Example
Either/Or.

35. 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)
Ad hominem Example
Straw Man
Equivocation Example
Red herring Example

36. 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.
Either/Or. Example
Slippery Slope Example
Dogmatism Example
Non sequitur

37. If we can Hummers because they are bad for the environment eventually the government will ban all cars - so we should not ban hummers.
Dogmatism Example
Non sequitur Example
Scare Tatics Example
Slipper Slop Example

38. Everyone else is going out and getting drunk tonight - so you should too.
Ad hominem Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Non sequitur Example

39. 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
Scare Tatics Example
Faulty Causality Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example

40. Everyone else is displaying a flag - or a support our troops sticker on their car - therefore - you should too.
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Scare Tatics Example
Faulty Causality Example
Faulty Analogy

41. You can't give me a C - I'm an A student.
Slipper Slop Example
Begging the Question EX.
Ad hominem Example
Ad hominem Example

42. This argumentative fallacy in which the rhetor frames an issue in terms of exaggerated threats or dangers.
Red herring Example
Sentimental Appeals
Scare Tatics
Straw Man

43. This is an attack on the character of a person rather than her/his opinions or arguments.
Either/Or.
Ad hominem
Slippery Slope Example
Faulty Causality Example

44. Either you support the president in everything he says and does or you are not a patriotic American
Either/Or. Example
Begging the Question Example
Red Herring Example
Slipper Slop Example

45. 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
Faulty Analogy Example
Slipper Slop Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example

46. I knew a gay guy who was not very masculine; this just goes to show that gay guys are more effeminate than straight men.
Faulty Causality
Hasty Generalization
Slipper Slop Example
Hasty Generalization Example

47. 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
Either/Or. Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Slippery Slope

48. 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.
Straw Man Example
Red herring Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Appeals to False Authority

49. 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.
Either/Or. Example
Ad hominem Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Either/Or.

50. We can either stop using cars or destroy the earth.
Bandwagon appeal
Either/Or. Example
Either/Or.
Begging the Question