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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. 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
Faulty Analogy
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Equivocation Example

2. 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
Begging the Question Example
Begging the Question
Red Herring

3. 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
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Ad hominem Example
Begging the Question Example

4. 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 Example
Ad hominem Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Slippery Slope Example

5. Green Peace's strategies aren't effective because they are all dirty - lazy hippies.
Either/Or. Example
Ad hominem Example
Red Herring
Sentimental Appeals. Ex

6. You can't give me a C - I'm an A student.
Ad hominem Example
Either/Or. Example
Begging the Question EX.
Hasty Generalization Example

7. 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 Causality Example
Straw Man Example
Appeals to False Authority
Faulty Analogy Example

8. 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.
Scare Tatics Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Straw Man Example
Slippery Slope Example

9. This is a diversionary tactic that avoid key issues - often by avoiding opposing arguments rather than addressing them.
Non sequitur Example
Red Herring
Dogmatism Example
Ad hominem Example

10. She is feminist; she must hate men.
Non sequitur Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Ad hominem
Slipper Slop Example

11. This is an attack on the character of a person rather than her/his opinions or arguments.
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Non sequitur
Ad hominem
Sentimental Appeals

12. We can either stop using cars or destroy the earth.
Straw Man
Begging the Question Example
Either/Or.
Either/Or. Example

13. If you restrict my right to say whatever I want however I want this is the beginning of totalitarianism in America.
Appeals to False Authority Example
Slippery Slope Example
Begging the Question Example
Non sequitur Example

14. This is a conclusion based on insufficient evidence. In other words - you are rushing to a conclusion before you have all the relevant facts.
Appeals to False Authority
Hasty Generalization
Ad hominem Example
Non sequitur Example

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

16. Even though it's only the first day - I can tell this is going to be a boring course.
Scare Tatics
Hasty Generalization Example
Slipper Slop Example
Equivocation

17. 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.
Non sequitur
Straw Man
Dogmatism
Scare Tatics

18. Here's what I think about what you have written: anyone who opposes the death penalty for murder is a criminal at heart.
Faulty Causality Example
Ad hominem Example
Scare Tatics Example
Straw Man

19. There's no way that anyone can argue that abortion is anything other than murder.
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Dogmatism Example
Sentimental Appeals Example
Appeals to False Authority Example

20. Relying on manipulatively heart-warming or heart-wrenching appeals to emotion to win support for what has not been otherwise rationally justified.
Sentimental Appeals
Appeals to False Authority Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Red Herring Example

21. 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.
Red Herring Example
Scare Tatics Example
Ad hominem Example
Appeals to False Authority Example

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

23. 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
Ad hominem Example
Equivocation
Appeals to False Authority Example

24. 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
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Appeals to False Authority Example

25. 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
Ad hominem Example
Scare Tatics Example
Red herring Example

26. 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)
Begging the Question EX.
Equivocation
Equivocation Example
Begging the Question 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
Equivocation Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Sentimental Appeals

28. 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.
Sentimental Appeals Example
Dogmatism Example
Faulty Causality
Faulty Causality Example

29. This argumentative fallacy in which the rhetor frames an issue in terms of exaggerated threats or dangers.
Straw Man
Scare Tatics
Red Herring Example
Hasty Generalization

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
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Red herring Example
Begging the Question Example

31. Everyone else is displaying a flag - or a support our troops sticker on their car - therefore - you should too.
Non sequitur Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Straw Man
Begging the Question Example

32. 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
Appeals to False Authority Example
Dogmatism Example
Scare Tatics Example

33. 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.
Hasty Generalization Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Red Herring Example
Appeals to False Authority Example

34. Filthy and polluting coal should be banned.
Ad hominem Example
Dogmatism Example
Begging the Question Example
Scare Tatics

35. I can't be guilty of embezzlement; I'm an honest person.
Equivocation
Begging the Question Example
Dogmatism Example
Hasty Generalization

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

37. I drank bottled water and now I am sick - so the water must have made me sick.
Appeals to False Authority
Either/Or. Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Faulty Causality Example

38. 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.
Hasty Generalization Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Either/Or.
Slippery Slope

39. This sort of argument relies on the faulty assumption that because one event follows another - the second necessarily causes the first
Faulty Causality Example
Faulty Analogy
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Faulty Causality

40. Everyone else is going out and getting drunk tonight - so you should too.
Either/Or. Example
Slippery Slope Example
Begging the Question Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example

41. 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
Ad hominem Example
Straw Man
Straw Man Example

42. 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 Example
Begging the Question
Scare Tatics Example
Ad hominem Example

43. Either you worship God or you worship Satan.
Non sequitur Example
Scare Tatics Example
Ad hominem Example
Either/Or. Example

44. The level of mercury in seafood may be unsafe - but what will fishers do to support their families?
Faulty Causality Example
Dogmatism
Red herring Example
Dogmatism Example

45. 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
Either/Or. Example
Sentimental Appeals Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Bandwagon Appeal Example

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

47. 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.
Red herring Example
Ad hominem Example
Begging the Question
Appeals to False Authority

48. 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.
Appeals to False Authority Example
Scare Tatics Example
Straw Man Example
Faulty Analogy

49. 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.
Red Herring Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Faulty Analogy
Ad hominem Example

50. I don't support the President's foreign policy; look at the disastrous way he has taken care of our domestic economy.
Equivocation Example
Red herring Example
Appeals to False Authority
Dogmatism Example