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 drank bottled water and now I am sick - so the water must have made me sick.
Equivocation
Dogmatism Example
Faulty Causality Example
Slippery Slope Example

2. Either you worship God or you worship Satan.
Red herring Example
Red Herring
Dogmatism Example
Either/Or. Example

3. 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.
Dogmatism
Non sequitur Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Either/Or.

4. 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
Faulty Analogy Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Red Herring Example

5. 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.
Red herring Example
Equivocation Example
Faulty Analogy
Non sequitur

6. You can't give me a C - I'm an A student.
Begging the Question EX.
Non sequitur Example
Slippery Slope Example
Ad hominem Example

7. Everyone else is displaying a flag - or a support our troops sticker on their car - therefore - you should too.
Faulty Analogy Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Dogmatism Example
Sentimental Appeals

8. This is a conclusion based on insufficient evidence. In other words - you are rushing to a conclusion before you have all the relevant facts.
Hasty Generalization Example
Sentimental Appeals Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Hasty Generalization

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

10. 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.
Red Herring
Faulty Analogy Example
Dogmatism
Hasty Generalization Example

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

12. 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.
Ad hominem Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Straw Man Example

13. If you restrict my right to say whatever I want however I want this is the beginning of totalitarianism in America.
Straw Man
Slippery Slope Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Non sequitur

14. 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
Scare Tatics Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example

15. This is a conclusion that oversimplifies the argument by reducing it only to two sides or choices.
Either/Or.
Hasty Generalization Example
Red Herring Example
Non sequitur

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

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.
Scare Tatics Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example

18. 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 Causality
Dogmatism Example
Faulty Causality Example
Hasty Generalization

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

20. 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.
Red Herring Example
Ad hominem
Ad hominem Example
Appeals to False Authority Example

21. Everyone else is going out and getting drunk tonight - so you should too.
Slippery Slope Example
Faulty Analogy
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Sentimental Appeals

22. 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 Example
Straw Man Example
Non sequitur
Hasty Generalization Example

23. Green Peace's strategies aren't effective because they are all dirty - lazy hippies.
Faulty Causality
Ad hominem Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Slippery Slope Example

24. 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
Straw Man
Hasty Generalization Example
Scare Tatics Example

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.
Hasty Generalization Example
Scare Tatics
Begging the Question EX.
Non sequitur Example

26. 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
Slippery Slope Example
Begging the Question Example
Dogmatism Example

27. We can either stop using cars or destroy the earth.
Ad hominem Example
Appeals to False Authority
Ad hominem Example
Either/Or. Example

28. 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
Ad hominem Example
Faulty Causality Example
Begging the Question

29. I can't be guilty of embezzlement; I'm an honest person.
Faulty Causality Example
Begging the Question Example
Slippery Slope
Scare Tatics

30. This argumentative fallacy in which the rhetor frames an issue in terms of exaggerated threats or dangers.
Ad hominem Example
Scare Tatics
Appeals to False Authority Example
Straw Man Example

31. 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.
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Ad hominem Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Scare Tatics

32. Here's what I think about what you have written: anyone who opposes the death penalty for murder is a criminal at heart.
Non sequitur
Appeals to False Authority Example
Ad hominem Example
Begging the Question Example

33. The level of mercury in seafood may be unsafe - but what will fishers do to support their families?
Straw Man Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Red herring Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example

34. 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
Red Herring Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Faulty Causality 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.
Non sequitur
Slipper Slop Example
Red Herring
Faulty Analogy

36. Either you support the president in everything he says and does or you are not a patriotic American
Sentimental Appeals
Either/Or. Example
Equivocation
Ad hominem

37. This fallacy of argument recommends a course of action on the grounds that everyone else is following the same path.
Bandwagon appeal
Hasty Generalization
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Appeals to False Authority Example

38. 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
Scare Tatics Example
Faulty Analogy
Ad hominem Example

39. 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 Analogy Example
Ad hominem
Ad hominem Example

40. This argument gives a lie an honest appearance - by insisting on What is only partially or formally true.
Either/Or. Example
Equivocation
Non sequitur
Scare Tatics Example

41. 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.
Scare Tatics
Sentimental Appeals
Non sequitur Example
Hasty Generalization Example

42. Filthy and polluting coal should be banned.
Appeals to False Authority Example
Either/Or.
Scare Tatics
Begging the Question Example

43. 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 Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Scare Tatics Example
Either/Or. Example

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

45. 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
Faulty Causality Example
Equivocation Example
Scare Tatics Example

46. 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
Sentimental Appeals Example
Slippery Slope Example
Scare Tatics
Red herring Example

47. 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.
Red herring Example
Slippery Slope
Begging the Question Example
Scare Tatics

48. She is feminist; she must hate men.
Faulty Causality Example
Non sequitur Example
Equivocation Example
Begging the Question EX.

49. 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.
Slippery Slope Example
Straw Man
Either/Or.
Begging the Question Example

50. There's no way that anyone can argue that abortion is anything other than murder.
Either/Or. Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Dogmatism Example
Begging the Question