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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. There's no way that anyone can argue that abortion is anything other than murder.
Equivocation Example
Dogmatism Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Hasty Generalization

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 Example
Sentimental Appeals Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Hasty Generalization

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

4. I don't support the President's foreign policy; look at the disastrous way he has taken care of our domestic economy.
Dogmatism Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Red herring Example
Slippery Slope Example

5. You can't give me a C - I'm an A student.
Begging the Question EX.
Red Herring Example
Ad hominem Example
Equivocation Example

6. Filthy and polluting coal should be banned.
Begging the Question EX.
Scare Tatics Example
Faulty Analogy
Begging the Question Example

7. 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
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Either/Or.
Appeals to False Authority Example

8. I can't be guilty of embezzlement; I'm an honest person.
Hasty Generalization Example
Sentimental Appeals Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Begging the Question Example

9. 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
Faulty Analogy Example
Faulty Causality Example
Sentimental Appeals

10. This fallacy of argument recommends a course of action on the grounds that everyone else is following the same path.
Dogmatism Example
Slipper Slop Example
Bandwagon appeal
Sentimental Appeals

11. I drank bottled water and now I am sick - so the water must have made me sick.
Faulty Causality Example
Slipper Slop Example
Scare Tatics Example
Appeals to False Authority Example

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

13. 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
Equivocation Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Non sequitur Example

14. This sort of argument relies on the faulty assumption that because one event follows another - the second necessarily causes the first
Straw Man
Sentimental Appeals Example
Faulty Causality
Equivocation Example

15. 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.
Faulty Analogy
Ad hominem Example
Faulty Causality
Begging the Question Example

16. 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
Dogmatism
Scare Tatics Example

17. This argument gives a lie an honest appearance - by insisting on What is only partially or formally true.
Equivocation
Non sequitur Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Red herring Example

18. 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.
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Ad hominem Example
Faulty Causality
Bandwagon Appeal 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.
Straw Man Example
Dogmatism Example
Dogmatism
Appeals to False Authority Example

20. 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 EX.
Hasty Generalization Example
Scare Tatics Example
Sentimental Appeals Example

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

22. 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.
Begging the Question Example
Non sequitur
Faulty Analogy Example
Red Herring Example

23. 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 Example
Bandwagon appeal
Appeals to False Authority
Sentimental Appeals. Ex

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.
Non sequitur
Straw Man
Faulty Causality
Begging the Question Example

25. Everyone else is going out and getting drunk tonight - so you should too.
Ad hominem Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Slippery Slope
Ad hominem

26. 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
Red herring Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Either/Or. Example

27. 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.
Either/Or. Example
Begging the Question
Equivocation Example
Hasty Generalization Example

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

29. Either you worship God or you worship Satan.
Faulty Causality Example
Straw Man Example
Bandwagon appeal
Either/Or. Example

30. Relying on manipulatively heart-warming or heart-wrenching appeals to emotion to win support for what has not been otherwise rationally justified.
Scare Tatics Example
Red Herring Example
Slipper Slop Example
Sentimental Appeals

31. 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.
Hasty Generalization Example
Dogmatism Example
Begging the Question Example
Bandwagon appeal

32. Either you support the president in everything he says and does or you are not a patriotic American
Either/Or. Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Ad hominem Example
Bandwagon appeal

33. 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.
Appeals to False Authority Example
Faulty Causality Example
Faulty Causality
Slippery Slope Example

34. 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
Hasty Generalization Example
Red Herring Example
Dogmatism 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
Non sequitur Example
Red herring Example
Ad hominem

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

37. 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.
Non sequitur Example
Hasty Generalization
Faulty Causality Example
Red herring Example

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

39. 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
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Scare Tatics
Dogmatism Example

40. This is an attack on the character of a person rather than her/his opinions or arguments.
Appeals to False Authority Example
Ad hominem
Equivocation
Ad hominem Example

41. We can either stop using cars or destroy the earth.
Equivocation
Either/Or. Example
Dogmatism Example
Slipper Slop Example

42. This is a conclusion that oversimplifies the argument by reducing it only to two sides or choices.
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Hasty Generalization Example
Either/Or.
Hasty Generalization Example

43. 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
Sentimental Appeals
Equivocation Example
Slippery Slope Example

44. 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
Hasty Generalization Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Appeals to False Authority Example

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

46. I knew a gay guy who was not very masculine; this just goes to show that gay guys are more effeminate than straight men.
Slippery Slope Example
Red Herring Example
Scare Tatics Example
Hasty Generalization Example

47. 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
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Sentimental Appeals Example
Either/Or. Example
Slippery Slope Example

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

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

50. 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
Ad hominem Example
Equivocation Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Equivocation