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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 can't be guilty of embezzlement; I'm an honest person.
Dogmatism
Red Herring Example
Straw Man Example
Begging the Question Example

2. 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.
Non sequitur Example
Faulty Causality Example
Appeals to False Authority
Faulty Causality

3. Green Peace's strategies aren't effective because they are all dirty - lazy hippies.
Begging the Question EX.
Ad hominem Example
Bandwagon appeal
Sentimental Appeals

4. 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.
Ad hominem
Non sequitur Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Slippery Slope Example

5. There's no way that anyone can argue that abortion is anything other than murder.
Dogmatism Example
Red Herring
Sentimental Appeals Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example

6. 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
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Slippery Slope Example

7. I drank bottled water and now I am sick - so the water must have made me sick.
Either/Or. Example
Red Herring Example
Faulty Causality Example
Scare Tatics Example

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

9. 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
Appeals to False Authority
Dogmatism Example
Either/Or. Example

10. 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
Hasty Generalization Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Hasty Generalization
Straw Man Example

11. We can either stop using cars or destroy the earth.
Either/Or. Example
Slipper Slop Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Bandwagon Appeal 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.
Hasty Generalization Example
Either/Or.
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Non sequitur

13. The level of mercury in seafood may be unsafe - but what will fishers do to support their families?
Non sequitur Example
Straw Man Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Red herring Example

14. She is feminist; she must hate men.
Slippery Slope
Non sequitur
Non sequitur Example
Hasty Generalization Example

15. 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
Faulty Analogy Example
Dogmatism
Faulty Analogy

16. This argument gives a lie an honest appearance - by insisting on What is only partially or formally true.
Slippery Slope Example
Either/Or. Example
Equivocation
Faulty Causality Example

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

18. 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
Appeals to False Authority Example
Scare Tatics
Ad hominem

19. Everyone else is displaying a flag - or a support our troops sticker on their car - therefore - you should too.
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Ad hominem
Appeals to False Authority
Straw Man Example

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

21. Everyone else is going out and getting drunk tonight - so you should too.
Straw Man
Appeals to False Authority Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Dogmatism Example

22. Even though it's only the first day - I can tell this is going to be a boring course.
Hasty Generalization Example
Straw Man
Non sequitur Example
Begging the Question Example

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

24. 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
Sentimental Appeals
Scare Tatics Example
Hasty Generalization Example

25. 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.
Appeals to False Authority
Sentimental Appeals Example
Faulty Causality Example
Scare Tatics 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.
Red herring Example
Dogmatism Example
Begging the Question Example
Either/Or.

27. You can't give me a C - I'm an A student.
Begging the Question EX.
Dogmatism
Either/Or. Example
Hasty Generalization 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)
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Equivocation Example

29. 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
Hasty Generalization Example
Faulty Causality
Sentimental Appeals Example

30. 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 Example
Faulty Causality Example

31. 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.
Faulty Causality Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Equivocation Example
Scare Tatics Example

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

33. 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.
Sentimental Appeals Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Faulty Analogy
Red herring Example

34. Here's what I think about what you have written: anyone who opposes the death penalty for murder is a criminal at heart.
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Equivocation Example
Ad hominem Example
Either/Or. Example

35. 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.
Red herring Example
Straw Man Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Equivocation Example

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

37. If we can Hummers because they are bad for the environment eventually the government will ban all cars - so we should not ban hummers.
Equivocation Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Slipper Slop Example

38. 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.
Scare Tatics
Begging the Question EX.
Ad hominem
Appeals to False Authority Example

39. 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.)
Begging the Question Example
Either/Or. Example
Equivocation Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example

40. 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
Non sequitur
Red herring Example
Either/Or. Example

41. Filthy and polluting coal should be banned.
Non sequitur Example
Begging the Question Example
Straw Man Example
Either/Or. Example

42. 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.
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Slippery Slope
Begging the Question Example
Slippery Slope Example

43. 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.
Faulty Analogy Example
Red Herring
Appeals to False Authority Example
Scare Tatics Example

44. 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.
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Begging the Question
Scare Tatics
Appeals to False Authority

45. 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.
Faulty Causality Example
Red Herring Example
Ad hominem
Faulty Causality

46. 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.
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Faulty Causality Example
Bandwagon appeal
Red herring Example

47. Either you worship God or you worship Satan.
Either/Or. Example
Bandwagon appeal
Appeals to False Authority
Slippery Slope Example

48. Either you support the president in everything he says and does or you are not a patriotic American
Sentimental Appeals
Either/Or. Example
Scare Tatics
Slipper Slop Example

49. 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
Red herring Example
Dogmatism
Non sequitur

50. 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 Example
Ad hominem
Dogmatism Example
Faulty Analogy Example