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

2. 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
Non sequitur Example
Ad hominem Example
Straw Man

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
Slippery Slope Example
Ad hominem Example
Faulty Causality Example

4. This is an attack on the character of a person rather than her/his opinions or arguments.
Appeals to False Authority
Non sequitur Example
Slipper Slop Example
Ad hominem

5. Either you support the president in everything he says and does or you are not a patriotic American
Hasty Generalization Example
Either/Or. Example
Non sequitur Example
Hasty Generalization

6. 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.
Begging the Question EX.
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Slippery Slope Example
Hasty Generalization Example

7. 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
Faulty Causality
Ad hominem Example
Faulty Causality Example
Faulty Analogy Example

8. 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.
Red herring Example
Begging the Question
Sentimental Appeals
Appeals to False Authority Example

9. 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.
Non sequitur Example
Red herring Example
Straw Man Example
Faulty Analogy Example

10. 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
Ad hominem Example
Red herring Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example

11. 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.
Scare Tatics
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Scare Tatics Example

12. 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
Straw Man
Faulty Causality Example
Bandwagon appeal

13. Even though it's only the first day - I can tell this is going to be a boring course.
Ad hominem Example
Equivocation Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Dogmatism

14. Green Peace's strategies aren't effective because they are all dirty - lazy hippies.
Either/Or. Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Scare Tatics
Ad hominem Example

15. 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.
Either/Or. Example
Ad hominem Example
Scare Tatics
Sentimental Appeals. Ex

16. This is a conclusion based on insufficient evidence. In other words - you are rushing to a conclusion before you have all the relevant facts.
Scare Tatics Example
Hasty Generalization
Either/Or. Example
Red Herring

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

18. This argument gives a lie an honest appearance - by insisting on What is only partially or formally true.
Slippery Slope Example
Straw Man
Hasty Generalization
Equivocation

19. 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.
Slipper Slop Example
Bandwagon appeal
Sentimental Appeals
Straw Man

20. 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 Example
Begging the Question Example
Sentimental Appeals Example
Ad hominem Example

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

22. You can't give me a C - I'm an A student.
Begging the Question EX.
Either/Or. Example
Slippery Slope
Begging the Question Example

23. 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
Equivocation Example
Faulty Causality Example
Faulty Causality

24. 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.
Bandwagon appeal
Begging the Question Example
Dogmatism Example
Dogmatism

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

26. This fallacy of argument recommends a course of action on the grounds that everyone else is following the same path.
Bandwagon appeal
Appeals to False Authority Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Faulty Causality

27. I drank bottled water and now I am sick - so the water must have made me sick.
Faulty Causality Example
Scare Tatics Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Scare Tatics Example

28. 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
Equivocation Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Straw Man Example

29. This argumentative fallacy in which the rhetor frames an issue in terms of exaggerated threats or dangers.
Slippery Slope Example
Sentimental Appeals
Scare Tatics
Ad hominem Example

30. Relying on manipulatively heart-warming or heart-wrenching appeals to emotion to win support for what has not been otherwise rationally justified.
Sentimental Appeals
Either/Or. Example
Slippery Slope Example
Dogmatism Example

31. There's no way that anyone can argue that abortion is anything other than murder.
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Scare Tatics Example
Equivocation Example
Dogmatism Example

32. 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.
Dogmatism
Ad hominem Example
Slippery Slope
Equivocation

33. The level of mercury in seafood may be unsafe - but what will fishers do to support their families?
Red herring Example
Either/Or. Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Begging the Question

34. I knew a gay guy who was not very masculine; this just goes to show that gay guys are more effeminate than straight men.
Sentimental Appeals
Equivocation Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example

35. 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
Straw Man
Scare Tatics Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Sentimental Appeals Example

36. 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.
Non sequitur Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Slippery Slope Example
Faulty Causality Example

37. Because of the possibility of a terrorist hijacking or mechanical failure - flying on a plane is too dangerous and should be avoided altogether.
Bandwagon appeal
Equivocation Example
Begging the Question EX.
Scare Tatics Example

38. Either you worship God or you worship Satan.
Equivocation Example
Begging the Question
Either/Or. Example
Equivocation Example

39. 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.
Red herring Example
Dogmatism Example
Sentimental Appeals
Non sequitur Example

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

41. 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
Either/Or. Example
Hasty Generalization
Hasty Generalization Example

42. 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 Example
Begging the Question Example
Faulty Causality Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex

43. 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.
Ad hominem
Hasty Generalization Example
Begging the Question
Faulty Analogy Example

44. Everyone else is going out and getting drunk tonight - so you should too.
Bandwagon appeal
Scare Tatics Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Hasty Generalization

45. We can either stop using cars or destroy the earth.
Either/Or. Example
Scare Tatics Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Red herring 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.
Non sequitur Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Dogmatism Example
Ad hominem Example

47. She is feminist; she must hate men.
Red herring Example
Non sequitur Example
Either/Or. Example
Ad hominem Example

48. This sort of argument relies on the faulty assumption that because one event follows another - the second necessarily causes the first
Faulty Causality
Appeals to False Authority Example
Straw Man
Either/Or. Example

49. This is a diversionary tactic that avoid key issues - often by avoiding opposing arguments rather than addressing them.
Equivocation Example
Dogmatism
Red Herring
Either/Or.

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