Test your basic knowledge |

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. 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.
Dogmatism Example
Scare Tatics Example
Ad hominem Example
Ad hominem

2. 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
Ad hominem Example
Begging the Question Example

3. 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
Begging the Question
Slippery Slope
Faulty Analogy Example
Appeals to False Authority Example

4. 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
Either/Or.
Non sequitur Example
Scare Tatics

5. 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
Slippery Slope
Either/Or. Example
Begging the Question Example

6. Green Peace's strategies aren't effective because they are all dirty - lazy hippies.
Equivocation Example
Hasty Generalization
Ad hominem Example
Begging the Question Example

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.
Slippery Slope
Red Herring
Scare Tatics Example
Non sequitur

8. This sort of argument relies on the faulty assumption that because one event follows another - the second necessarily causes the first
Hasty Generalization Example
Faulty Causality
Either/Or.
Equivocation Example

9. 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
Slippery Slope
Red herring Example
Faulty Causality

10. 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.
Appeals to False Authority
Ad hominem Example
Slippery Slope Example
Non sequitur

11. She is feminist; she must hate men.
Equivocation Example
Bandwagon appeal
Non sequitur Example
Slipper Slop Example

12. 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.
Slipper Slop Example
Either/Or. Example
Red Herring Example
Scare Tatics

13. This is an attack on the character of a person rather than her/his opinions or arguments.
Ad hominem
Non sequitur Example
Slippery Slope
Bandwagon Appeal 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.
Scare Tatics Example
Begging the Question Example
Slipper Slop Example
Appeals to False Authority Example

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

16. This is a diversionary tactic that avoid key issues - often by avoiding opposing arguments rather than addressing them.
Red Herring
Hasty Generalization Example
Begging the Question Example
Non sequitur Example

17. 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.
Red Herring Example
Red Herring

18. There's no way that anyone can argue that abortion is anything other than murder.
Dogmatism Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Faulty Analogy Example
Equivocation Example

19. 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.
Equivocation
Faulty Analogy
Straw Man Example

20. You can't give me a C - I'm an A student.
Straw Man
Begging the Question EX.
Faulty Causality Example
Either/Or. Example

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

23. The level of mercury in seafood may be unsafe - but what will fishers do to support their families?
Red herring Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Sentimental Appeals
Bandwagon Appeal Example

24. 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
Faulty Causality
Equivocation Example
Scare Tatics

25. 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.
Straw Man
Faulty Analogy
Dogmatism
Scare Tatics Example

26. Here's what I think about what you have written: anyone who opposes the death penalty for murder is a criminal at heart.
Red Herring
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Ad hominem Example

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

28. This argument gives a lie an honest appearance - by insisting on What is only partially or formally true.
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Dogmatism Example
Equivocation
Red herring Example

29. 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.
Equivocation Example
Dogmatism
Slippery Slope Example
Faulty Causality Example

30. Everyone else is going out and getting drunk tonight - so you should too.
Equivocation Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Ad hominem
Bandwagon Appeal Example

31. Because of the possibility of a terrorist hijacking or mechanical failure - flying on a plane is too dangerous and should be avoided altogether.
Non sequitur Example
Slippery Slope
Scare Tatics Example
Dogmatism Example

32. We can either stop using cars or destroy the earth.
Begging the Question EX.
Hasty Generalization Example
Either/Or. Example
Equivocation Example

33. 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.
Dogmatism Example
Non sequitur Example
Equivocation Example
Scare Tatics Example

34. Relying on manipulatively heart-warming or heart-wrenching appeals to emotion to win support for what has not been otherwise rationally justified.
Sentimental Appeals
Faulty Causality Example
Ad hominem Example
Non sequitur Example

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

36. Either you worship God or you worship Satan.
Hasty Generalization Example
Either/Or. Example
Straw Man Example
Scare Tatics Example

37. 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
Bandwagon appeal
Non sequitur Example
Hasty Generalization Example

38. 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.
Sentimental Appeals
Slippery Slope Example
Ad hominem
Scare Tatics Example

39. 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
Scare Tatics Example
Dogmatism Example

40. This argumentative fallacy in which the rhetor frames an issue in terms of exaggerated threats or dangers.
Faulty Causality Example
Faulty Causality
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Scare Tatics

41. 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.
Slippery Slope Example
Straw Man Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Faulty Causality Example

42. 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.
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Hasty Generalization
Scare Tatics
Either/Or. Example

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

44. 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
Scare Tatics Example
Ad hominem Example
Sentimental Appeals Example
Appeals to False Authority Example

45. 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.)
Sentimental Appeals Example
Begging the Question Example
Equivocation Example
Hasty Generalization Example

46. 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.
Begging the Question
Scare Tatics
Dogmatism
Equivocation

47. Everyone else is displaying a flag - or a support our troops sticker on their car - therefore - you should too.
Either/Or.
Ad hominem Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Hasty Generalization Example

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

49. I drank bottled water and now I am sick - so the water must have made me sick.
Faulty Causality Example
Either/Or. Example
Hasty Generalization
Equivocation Example

50. Filthy and polluting coal should be banned.
Equivocation
Begging the Question Example
Ad hominem Example
Non sequitur Example