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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. If we can Hummers because they are bad for the environment eventually the government will ban all cars - so we should not ban hummers.
Begging the Question Example
Slipper Slop Example
Straw Man Example
Faulty Analogy Example

2. Green Peace's strategies aren't effective because they are all dirty - lazy hippies.
Faulty Analogy
Faulty Causality
Ad hominem Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example

3. 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.
Red Herring
Faulty Causality Example
Either/Or. Example
Hasty Generalization Example

4. Either you support the president in everything he says and does or you are not a patriotic American
Appeals to False Authority
Either/Or. Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Faulty Analogy 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.
Begging the Question
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Equivocation Example
Hasty Generalization Example

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

7. Even though it's only the first day - I can tell this is going to be a boring course.
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Red Herring Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Hasty Generalization Example

8. We can either stop using cars or destroy the earth.
Slipper Slop Example
Either/Or. Example
Faulty Causality
Faulty Analogy Example

9. Here's what I think about what you have written: anyone who opposes the death penalty for murder is a criminal at heart.
Bandwagon appeal
Begging the Question
Ad hominem Example
Begging the Question Example

10. 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.
Non sequitur Example
Red Herring Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Faulty Analogy

11. 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.
Begging the Question Example
Equivocation
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Straw Man

12. 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.
Equivocation
Faulty Analogy Example
Red herring Example
Begging the Question Example

13. This is a conclusion that oversimplifies the argument by reducing it only to two sides or choices.
Begging the Question EX.
Ad hominem Example
Either/Or.
Sentimental Appeals Example

14. 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.
Begging the Question Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Faulty Causality Example
Either/Or.

15. 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.
Appeals to False Authority
Either/Or. Example
Scare Tatics Example
Either/Or. Example

16. 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.
Begging the Question EX.
Straw Man Example
Begging the Question Example
Hasty Generalization Example

17. She is feminist; she must hate men.
Non sequitur Example
Appeals to False Authority
Begging the Question Example
Dogmatism Example

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

19. This argument gives a lie an honest appearance - by insisting on What is only partially or formally true.
Hasty Generalization Example
Ad hominem Example
Equivocation
Straw Man

20. 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
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Begging the Question
Hasty Generalization Example

21. There's no way that anyone can argue that abortion is anything other than murder.
Faulty Causality Example
Either/Or. Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Dogmatism Example

22. 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.
Slippery Slope Example
Ad hominem Example
Ad hominem Example
Appeals to False Authority Example

23. I knew a gay guy who was not very masculine; this just goes to show that gay guys are more effeminate than straight men.
Either/Or. Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Ad hominem Example
Begging the Question Example

24. This is a conclusion based on insufficient evidence. In other words - you are rushing to a conclusion before you have all the relevant facts.
Either/Or. Example
Equivocation Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Hasty Generalization

25. This argumentative fallacy in which the rhetor frames an issue in terms of exaggerated threats or dangers.
Either/Or. Example
Scare Tatics
Hasty Generalization Example
Non sequitur

26. 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
Ad hominem Example
Red herring Example
Ad hominem Example

27. 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
Sentimental Appeals
Sentimental Appeals Example
Ad hominem Example

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

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

30. Relying on manipulatively heart-warming or heart-wrenching appeals to emotion to win support for what has not been otherwise rationally justified.
Faulty Causality
Red herring Example
Sentimental Appeals
Hasty Generalization Example

31. 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.
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Non sequitur Example
Red Herring
Appeals to False Authority Example

32. 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
Non sequitur
Scare Tatics
Ad hominem Example

33. 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
Either/Or. Example
Scare Tatics
Straw Man

34. This is a diversionary tactic that avoid key issues - often by avoiding opposing arguments rather than addressing them.
Red herring Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Begging the Question Example
Red Herring

35. 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.
Slippery Slope Example
Red Herring Example
Begging the Question Example
Ad hominem Example

36. 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
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Non sequitur Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex

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.
Non sequitur Example
Faulty Causality Example
Non sequitur
Dogmatism Example

38. The level of mercury in seafood may be unsafe - but what will fishers do to support their families?
Scare Tatics Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Non sequitur Example
Red herring Example

39. 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.
Begging the Question
Scare Tatics Example
Hasty Generalization
Hasty Generalization Example

40. Everyone else is going out and getting drunk tonight - so you should too.
Scare Tatics Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Begging the Question
Red herring Example

41. Filthy and polluting coal should be banned.
Hasty Generalization Example
Begging the Question Example
Faulty Causality Example
Non sequitur

42. If you restrict my right to say whatever I want however I want this is the beginning of totalitarianism in America.
Equivocation Example
Slippery Slope Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example

43. 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.
Either/Or. Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Dogmatism

44. Either you worship God or you worship Satan.
Sentimental Appeals Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Either/Or. Example
Dogmatism Example

45. I drank bottled water and now I am sick - so the water must have made me sick.
Faulty Causality Example
Either/Or. Example
Either/Or. Example
Dogmatism Example

46. 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
Slippery Slope Example
Hasty Generalization
Equivocation Example

47. 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.
Faulty Causality Example
Slippery Slope
Hasty Generalization Example
Red herring Example

48. Because of the possibility of a terrorist hijacking or mechanical failure - flying on a plane is too dangerous and should be avoided altogether.
Either/Or. Example
Sentimental Appeals
Begging the Question Example
Scare Tatics Example

49. Everyone else is displaying a flag - or a support our troops sticker on their car - therefore - you should too.
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Slippery Slope Example
Red Herring
Ad hominem Example

50. 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.
Either/Or. Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Dogmatism Example
Dogmatism