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. 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
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Faulty Causality Example

2. She is feminist; she must hate men.
Scare Tatics Example
Non sequitur Example
Faulty Analogy
Appeals to False Authority

3. If you restrict my right to say whatever I want however I want this is the beginning of totalitarianism in America.
Scare Tatics Example
Ad hominem Example
Slippery Slope Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex

4. You can't give me a C - I'm an A student.
Begging the Question EX.
Faulty Analogy Example
Non sequitur
Sentimental Appeals

5. Relying on manipulatively heart-warming or heart-wrenching appeals to emotion to win support for what has not been otherwise rationally justified.
Dogmatism
Sentimental Appeals
Scare Tatics
Faulty Analogy

6. 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
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Straw Man Example

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

8. 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
Red Herring Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Begging the Question Example

9. This is a conclusion that oversimplifies the argument by reducing it only to two sides or choices.
Bandwagon appeal
Faulty Causality Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Either/Or.

10. The level of mercury in seafood may be unsafe - but what will fishers do to support their families?
Hasty Generalization Example
Red herring Example
Equivocation Example
Dogmatism

11. 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
Hasty Generalization Example
Either/Or. Example
Red Herring

12. 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
Faulty Analogy Example
Slippery Slope Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex

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

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.
Non sequitur Example
Scare Tatics Example
Straw Man
Sentimental Appeals. Ex

15. 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
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Dogmatism Example

16. Everyone else is going out and getting drunk tonight - so you should too.
Scare Tatics Example
Non sequitur Example
Either/Or. Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example

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

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

19. 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.
Begging the Question Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Red Herring
Appeals to False Authority Example

20. 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.)
Hasty Generalization Example
Equivocation Example
Ad hominem Example
Red herring Example

21. This argument gives a lie an honest appearance - by insisting on What is only partially or formally true.
Appeals to False Authority Example
Begging the Question Example
Equivocation
Hasty Generalization Example

22. 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.
Faulty Analogy Example
Slippery Slope Example
Non sequitur Example
Sentimental Appeals

23. This argumentative fallacy in which the rhetor frames an issue in terms of exaggerated threats or dangers.
Either/Or. Example
Begging the Question Example
Scare Tatics
Bandwagon Appeal Example

24. Either you worship God or you worship Satan.
Red Herring Example
Either/Or. Example
Non sequitur Example
Red Herring

25. 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.
Red herring Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Ad hominem Example
Appeals to False Authority

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

27. Everyone else is displaying a flag - or a support our troops sticker on their car - therefore - you should too.
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Sentimental Appeals
Slippery Slope
Appeals to False Authority Example

28. 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
Red herring Example
Ad hominem Example
Faulty Analogy Example

29. We can either stop using cars or destroy the earth.
Either/Or. Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Hasty Generalization
Faulty Analogy Example

30. 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.
Begging the Question Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Non sequitur
Slippery Slope

31. 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)
Slippery Slope Example
Faulty Causality
Faulty Analogy Example
Equivocation Example

32. This is a diversionary tactic that avoid key issues - often by avoiding opposing arguments rather than addressing them.
Slippery Slope Example
Equivocation
Faulty Analogy
Red Herring

33. 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
Either/Or. Example
Bandwagon appeal
Equivocation Example

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

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

36. I don't support the President's foreign policy; look at the disastrous way he has taken care of our domestic economy.
Slipper Slop Example
Begging the Question EX.
Slippery Slope Example
Red herring Example

37. There's no way that anyone can argue that abortion is anything other than murder.
Non sequitur Example
Red Herring
Dogmatism Example
Equivocation Example

38. 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.
Hasty Generalization Example
Equivocation Example
Begging the Question
Faulty Analogy Example

39. 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.
Begging the Question EX.
Appeals to False Authority
Bandwagon appeal
Scare Tatics Example

40. 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
Sentimental Appeals Example
Bandwagon appeal
Ad hominem Example

41. 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
Sentimental Appeals
Bandwagon appeal
Appeals to False Authority

42. 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.
Dogmatism
Scare Tatics Example
Straw Man
Hasty Generalization Example

43. This fallacy of argument recommends a course of action on the grounds that everyone else is following the same path.
Faulty Analogy Example
Red herring Example
Scare Tatics Example
Bandwagon appeal

44. This is an attack on the character of a person rather than her/his opinions or arguments.
Ad hominem Example
Equivocation Example
Ad hominem
Begging the Question

45. I can't be guilty of embezzlement; I'm an honest person.
Scare Tatics
Begging the Question Example
Dogmatism Example
Appeals to False Authority Example

46. 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
Straw Man Example
Equivocation Example
Straw Man

47. Either you support the president in everything he says and does or you are not a patriotic American
Either/Or. Example
Red herring Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Sentimental Appeals

48. 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
Red Herring
Straw Man Example
Sentimental Appeals Example
Scare Tatics

49. 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.
Slippery Slope
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Faulty Causality Example
Slipper Slop Example

50. 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.
Non sequitur Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Either/Or. Example
Either/Or. Example