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

2. This is a conclusion based on insufficient evidence. In other words - you are rushing to a conclusion before you have all the relevant facts.
Red Herring
Equivocation Example
Faulty Analogy
Hasty Generalization

3. 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)
Non sequitur Example
Red herring Example
Dogmatism
Equivocation Example

4. 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.
Faulty Analogy Example
Ad hominem Example
Slippery Slope Example
Faulty Causality Example

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.
Equivocation Example
Scare Tatics Example
Ad hominem Example
Faulty Analogy Example

6. This sort of argument relies on the faulty assumption that because one event follows another - the second necessarily causes the first
Straw Man
Red herring Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Faulty Causality

7. 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.
Appeals to False Authority Example
Faulty Causality Example
Non sequitur Example
Sentimental Appeals

8. 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
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Begging the Question Example
Faulty Analogy Example

9. This fallacy of argument recommends a course of action on the grounds that everyone else is following the same path.
Scare Tatics Example
Bandwagon appeal
Either/Or. Example
Red Herring

10. I drank bottled water and now I am sick - so the water must have made me sick.
Faulty Causality Example
Red herring Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex

11. If you restrict my right to say whatever I want however I want this is the beginning of totalitarianism in America.
Faulty Causality
Faulty Causality Example
Slippery Slope Example
Either/Or. Example

12. There's no way that anyone can argue that abortion is anything other than murder.
Dogmatism Example
Slippery Slope Example
Slippery Slope Example
Either/Or. Example

13. 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.
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Ad hominem
Equivocation Example

14. This argumentative fallacy in which the rhetor frames an issue in terms of exaggerated threats or dangers.
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Either/Or.
Dogmatism Example
Scare Tatics

15. 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.)
Either/Or.
Equivocation Example
Ad hominem Example
Slippery Slope

16. 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.
Begging the Question EX.
Ad hominem Example
Sentimental Appeals Example
Straw Man Example

17. 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 Example
Dogmatism Example
Scare Tatics Example
Slipper Slop Example

18. 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
Either/Or. Example
Sentimental Appeals
Non sequitur

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

20. 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 Example
Begging the Question EX.
Dogmatism Example
Sentimental Appeals 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.
Faulty Analogy Example
Ad hominem Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Scare Tatics Example

22. 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
Hasty Generalization Example
Straw Man Example
Sentimental Appeals

23. If we can Hummers because they are bad for the environment eventually the government will ban all cars - so we should not ban hummers.
Hasty Generalization Example
Slipper Slop Example
Hasty Generalization
Faulty Causality Example

24. 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.
Either/Or.
Red Herring Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Begging the Question Example

25. Even though it's only the first day - I can tell this is going to be a boring course.
Equivocation Example
Equivocation
Hasty Generalization Example
Non sequitur Example

26. Everyone else is going out and getting drunk tonight - so you should too.
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Dogmatism
Equivocation
Slippery Slope

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.
Scare Tatics Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Faulty Analogy
Slipper Slop Example

28. 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
Red herring Example
Dogmatism
Slipper Slop Example

29. Either you support the president in everything he says and does or you are not a patriotic American
Non sequitur Example
Either/Or. Example
Faulty Causality Example
Begging the Question Example

30. Filthy and polluting coal should be banned.
Hasty Generalization Example
Straw Man Example
Begging the Question Example
Either/Or. Example

31. Either you worship God or you worship Satan.
Red herring Example
Either/Or. Example
Straw Man Example
Faulty Analogy

32. 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
Equivocation
Hasty Generalization Example
Scare Tatics

33. 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
Slippery Slope
Ad hominem Example
Dogmatism Example

34. We can either stop using cars or destroy the earth.
Either/Or.
Hasty Generalization Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Either/Or. Example

35. 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.
Slipper Slop Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Red Herring Example
Non sequitur Example

36. Here's what I think about what you have written: anyone who opposes the death penalty for murder is a criminal at heart.
Slippery Slope
Scare Tatics Example
Dogmatism
Ad hominem Example

37. This argument gives a lie an honest appearance - by insisting on What is only partially or formally true.
Faulty Causality
Faulty Analogy Example
Slipper Slop Example
Equivocation

38. This is a diversionary tactic that avoid key issues - often by avoiding opposing arguments rather than addressing them.
Red Herring
Appeals to False Authority
Red herring Example
Begging the Question Example

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

40. 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.
Begging the Question
Either/Or. Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Hasty Generalization Example

41. 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.
Faulty Analogy Example
Dogmatism
Either/Or.
Red herring Example

42. I knew a gay guy who was not very masculine; this just goes to show that gay guys are more effeminate than straight men.
Equivocation Example
Begging the Question EX.
Hasty Generalization Example
Slippery Slope Example

43. Everyone else is displaying a flag - or a support our troops sticker on their car - therefore - you should too.
Appeals to False Authority
Hasty Generalization Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Non sequitur

44. I can't be guilty of embezzlement; I'm an honest person.
Slippery Slope
Either/Or. Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Begging the Question Example

45. 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
Equivocation
Begging the Question Example
Red herring Example

46. Green Peace's strategies aren't effective because they are all dirty - lazy hippies.
Red herring Example
Ad hominem Example
Dogmatism Example
Slippery Slope

47. This is an attack on the character of a person rather than her/his opinions or arguments.
Hasty Generalization Example
Sentimental Appeals Example
Ad hominem
Begging the Question

48. 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.
Straw Man
Ad hominem Example
Non sequitur
Begging the Question

49. She is feminist; she must hate men.
Faulty Analogy Example
Non sequitur Example
Either/Or. Example
Faulty Analogy

50. 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
Straw Man Example
Either/Or.
Bandwagon Appeal Example