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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. 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
Begging the Question EX.
Either/Or.
Faulty Causality

2. Even though it's only the first day - I can tell this is going to be a boring course.
Either/Or. Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Ad hominem Example

3. Either you support the president in everything he says and does or you are not a patriotic American
Scare Tatics Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Either/Or. Example
Faulty Analogy

4. 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 Example
Ad hominem Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Faulty Causality 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.
Ad hominem Example
Equivocation Example
Faulty Analogy
Slippery Slope Example

6. I can't be guilty of embezzlement; I'm an honest person.
Begging the Question Example
Ad hominem Example
Red Herring Example
Either/Or. Example

7. Filthy and polluting coal should be banned.
Appeals to False Authority
Straw Man Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Begging the Question Example

8. The level of mercury in seafood may be unsafe - but what will fishers do to support their families?
Red herring Example
Slippery Slope
Scare Tatics
Hasty Generalization Example

9. Everyone else is displaying a flag - or a support our troops sticker on their car - therefore - you should too.
Ad hominem Example
Bandwagon appeal
Red Herring
Bandwagon Appeal Example

10. Either you worship God or you worship Satan.
Either/Or. Example
Sentimental Appeals
Bandwagon appeal
Scare Tatics 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.
Ad hominem Example
Dogmatism Example
Scare Tatics Example
Slipper Slop Example

12. 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)
Ad hominem Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Either/Or. Example
Equivocation Example

13. This is a conclusion that oversimplifies the argument by reducing it only to two sides or choices.
Sentimental Appeals
Scare Tatics
Red herring Example
Either/Or.

14. Everyone else is going out and getting drunk tonight - so you should too.
Either/Or. Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Red herring Example
Dogmatism 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.
Appeals to False Authority
Faulty Causality Example
Straw Man
Begging the Question

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

17. You can't give me a C - I'm an A student.
Appeals to False Authority Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Begging the Question EX.
Straw Man

18. 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.
Non sequitur Example
Red Herring Example
Faulty Causality Example
Ad hominem Example

19. 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
Non sequitur
Either/Or. Example
Sentimental Appeals

20. We can either stop using cars or destroy the earth.
Begging the Question Example
Faulty Analogy
Hasty Generalization
Either/Or. Example

21. 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
Equivocation
Appeals to False Authority
Scare Tatics Example

22. 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
Scare Tatics Example
Sentimental Appeals Example
Hasty Generalization Example

23. 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
Dogmatism
Faulty Analogy
Non sequitur

24. This argumentative fallacy in which the rhetor frames an issue in terms of exaggerated threats or dangers.
Begging the Question
Straw Man
Sentimental Appeals
Scare Tatics

25. 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.
Dogmatism Example
Dogmatism
Begging the Question Example
Hasty Generalization

26. Because of the possibility of a terrorist hijacking or mechanical failure - flying on a plane is too dangerous and should be avoided altogether.
Straw Man Example
Dogmatism Example
Scare Tatics Example
Faulty Causality

27. 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 Causality Example
Faulty Analogy
Non sequitur
Appeals to False Authority Example

28. There's no way that anyone can argue that abortion is anything other than murder.
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Appeals to False Authority
Dogmatism Example
Straw Man

29. This is an attack on the character of a person rather than her/his opinions or arguments.
Ad hominem
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Red herring Example
Scare Tatics Example

30. I drank bottled water and now I am sick - so the water must have made me sick.
Faulty Causality Example
Non sequitur
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Red Herring

31. I don't support the President's foreign policy; look at the disastrous way he has taken care of our domestic economy.
Red herring Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Ad hominem Example
Hasty Generalization Example

32. 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
Hasty Generalization Example
Red herring Example
Sentimental Appeals

33. This is a diversionary tactic that avoid key issues - often by avoiding opposing arguments rather than addressing them.
Red Herring
Straw Man
Either/Or. Example
Faulty Causality Example

34. This sort of argument relies on the faulty assumption that because one event follows another - the second necessarily causes the first
Ad hominem Example
Faulty Causality
Begging the Question Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex

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.
Slipper Slop Example
Equivocation Example
Dogmatism
Hasty Generalization Example

36. 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.
Begging the Question EX.
Equivocation Example
Slippery Slope
Red herring Example

37. 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
Hasty Generalization
Red Herring
Either/Or.

38. This argument gives a lie an honest appearance - by insisting on What is only partially or formally true.
Either/Or.
Bandwagon appeal
Begging the Question EX.
Equivocation

39. 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.
Slippery Slope Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Either/Or. Example
Scare Tatics

40. 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
Equivocation
Either/Or. Example
Non sequitur

41. 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.
Scare Tatics
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Faulty Causality
Begging the Question

42. 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.
Begging the Question Example
Straw Man Example
Either/Or. Example
Begging the Question Example

43. 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 Example
Begging the Question Example
Equivocation Example
Hasty Generalization Example

44. This fallacy of argument recommends a course of action on the grounds that everyone else is following the same path.
Slippery Slope Example
Scare Tatics
Bandwagon appeal
Appeals to False Authority Example

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

46. She is feminist; she must hate men.
Begging the Question EX.
Red herring Example
Non sequitur Example
Faulty Analogy Example

47. 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.)
Ad hominem Example
Equivocation Example
Faulty Causality Example
Straw Man 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.
Red Herring Example
Straw Man
Ad hominem
Appeals to False Authority

49. 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.
Faulty Analogy Example
Red Herring Example
Scare Tatics Example
Begging the Question Example

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.
Faulty Analogy Example
Sentimental Appeals
Ad hominem Example
Equivocation Example