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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. Relying on manipulatively heart-warming or heart-wrenching appeals to emotion to win support for what has not been otherwise rationally justified.
Sentimental Appeals
Ad hominem
Slippery Slope Example
Faulty Analogy

2. 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.
Faulty Analogy Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Scare Tatics
Non sequitur

3. I drank bottled water and now I am sick - so the water must have made me sick.
Faulty Causality Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Begging the Question
Equivocation

4. 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 Example
Non sequitur
Begging the Question

5. I don't support the President's foreign policy; look at the disastrous way he has taken care of our domestic economy.
Equivocation Example
Begging the Question EX.
Red herring Example
Appeals to False Authority Example

6. 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.
Faulty Analogy
Red Herring Example
Ad hominem Example
Non sequitur

7. Even though it's only the first day - I can tell this is going to be a boring course.
Sentimental Appeals Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Begging the Question Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example

8. Everyone else is displaying a flag - or a support our troops sticker on their car - therefore - you should too.
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Slippery Slope Example

9. 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
Hasty Generalization Example
Either/Or. Example
Slippery Slope Example

10. 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.
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Straw Man Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Dogmatism Example

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

12. 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 Causality Example
Ad hominem Example
Sentimental Appeals Example

13. 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
Red herring Example
Slippery Slope
Hasty Generalization

14. Because of the possibility of a terrorist hijacking or mechanical failure - flying on a plane is too dangerous and should be avoided altogether.
Either/Or.
Equivocation
Scare Tatics Example
Red Herring

15. Everyone else is going out and getting drunk tonight - so you should too.
Non sequitur Example
Faulty Causality Example
Straw Man Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example

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

17. 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 Example
Either/Or. Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Faulty Analogy

18. 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
Sentimental Appeals
Dogmatism
Red Herring

19. 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.
Non sequitur
Slippery Slope Example
Sentimental Appeals
Dogmatism Example

20. This argumentative fallacy in which the rhetor frames an issue in terms of exaggerated threats or dangers.
Sentimental Appeals
Hasty Generalization Example
Scare Tatics
Hasty Generalization Example

21. 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.
Red herring Example
Scare Tatics
Hasty Generalization Example
Ad hominem Example

22. We can either stop using cars or destroy the earth.
Either/Or. Example
Begging the Question Example
Slippery Slope Example
Slippery Slope Example

23. I can't be guilty of embezzlement; I'm an honest person.
Red herring Example
Straw Man
Begging the Question Example
Bandwagon appeal

24. 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.
Appeals to False Authority Example
Straw Man Example
Either/Or.
Faulty Analogy Example

25. This is a conclusion that oversimplifies the argument by reducing it only to two sides or choices.
Faulty Causality Example
Either/Or.
Begging the Question Example
Equivocation Example

26. This is an attack on the character of a person rather than her/his opinions or arguments.
Slipper Slop Example
Ad hominem
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Faulty Causality Example

27. 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.
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Appeals to False Authority
Hasty Generalization Example
Straw Man

28. Either you worship God or you worship Satan.
Sentimental Appeals
Equivocation
Non sequitur Example
Either/Or. Example

29. This sort of argument relies on the faulty assumption that because one event follows another - the second necessarily causes the first
Straw Man
Faulty Causality
Either/Or. Example
Begging the Question Example

30. I knew a gay guy who was not very masculine; this just goes to show that gay guys are more effeminate than straight men.
Dogmatism Example
Equivocation
Hasty Generalization Example
Either/Or. Example

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

32. 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.
Either/Or. Example
Straw Man
Hasty Generalization
Slippery Slope Example

33. 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.
Slippery Slope
Appeals to False Authority
Appeals to False Authority Example
Begging the Question

34. 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.
Either/Or. Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Faulty Analogy
Non sequitur Example

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

36. The level of mercury in seafood may be unsafe - but what will fishers do to support their families?
Ad hominem
Appeals to False Authority Example
Slippery Slope
Red herring Example

37. 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.
Slippery Slope
Faulty Analogy
Scare Tatics
Bandwagon Appeal Example

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

39. 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
Appeals to False Authority Example
Scare Tatics Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Sentimental Appeals Example

40. She is feminist; she must hate men.
Faulty Analogy
Faulty Causality
Non sequitur Example
Begging the Question 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.
Ad hominem
Faulty Analogy
Non sequitur Example
Bandwagon appeal

42. 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.)
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Faulty Causality Example
Red Herring Example
Equivocation Example

43. You can't give me a C - I'm an A student.
Faulty Analogy Example
Either/Or. Example
Dogmatism
Begging the Question EX.

44. There's no way that anyone can argue that abortion is anything other than murder.
Dogmatism Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Begging the Question EX.
Bandwagon Appeal Example

45. This is a conclusion based on insufficient evidence. In other words - you are rushing to a conclusion before you have all the relevant facts.
Bandwagon appeal
Faulty Analogy
Ad hominem Example
Hasty Generalization

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

47. If you restrict my right to say whatever I want however I want this is the beginning of totalitarianism in America.
Equivocation Example
Appeals to False Authority
Slippery Slope Example
Ad hominem Example

48. 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.
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Scare Tatics
Either/Or.
Appeals to False Authority

49. Green Peace's strategies aren't effective because they are all dirty - lazy hippies.
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Dogmatism
Faulty Causality Example
Ad hominem Example

50. 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
Straw Man Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Equivocation Example