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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. 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
Appeals to False Authority
Either/Or. Example
Begging the Question Example

2. 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
Ad hominem
Appeals to False Authority Example
Slipper Slop Example

3. 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
Either/Or.
Ad hominem Example
Dogmatism

4. This sort of argument relies on the faulty assumption that because one event follows another - the second necessarily causes the first
Ad hominem Example
Straw Man Example
Ad hominem Example
Faulty Causality

5. 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.
Equivocation
Appeals to False Authority Example
Non sequitur Example
Hasty Generalization Example

6. She is feminist; she must hate men.
Non sequitur Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Hasty Generalization Example
Either/Or. Example

7. Either you worship God or you worship Satan.
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Non sequitur
Straw Man Example
Either/Or. Example

8. I drank bottled water and now I am sick - so the water must have made me sick.
Faulty Causality Example
Scare Tatics Example
Appeals to False Authority
Ad hominem Example

9. 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
Dogmatism
Equivocation Example
Ad hominem Example

10. 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)
Scare Tatics
Begging the Question EX.
Equivocation Example
Red Herring

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

12. 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
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Hasty Generalization Example

13. 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.
Begging the Question Example
Faulty Causality
Red Herring Example
Appeals to False Authority

14. This is a diversionary tactic that avoid key issues - often by avoiding opposing arguments rather than addressing them.
Ad hominem Example
Red Herring
Hasty Generalization Example
Non sequitur

15. I can't be guilty of embezzlement; I'm an honest person.
Faulty Causality Example
Sentimental Appeals
Begging the Question Example
Slippery Slope Example

16. 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
Hasty Generalization Example
Begging the Question Example
Faulty Analogy Example

17. You can't give me a C - I'm an A student.
Equivocation
Faulty Causality Example
Begging the Question EX.
Slippery Slope

18. 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 Example
Ad hominem Example
Non sequitur
Non sequitur Example

19. This is an attack on the character of a person rather than her/his opinions or arguments.
Ad hominem
Faulty Causality
Red Herring
Either/Or. Example

20. 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.
Appeals to False Authority Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Ad hominem Example
Begging the Question

21. 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.
Faulty Analogy
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Bandwagon appeal

22. 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 Example
Ad hominem Example
Slipper Slop Example
Dogmatism

23. If you restrict my right to say whatever I want however I want this is the beginning of totalitarianism in America.
Faulty Causality Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Slipper Slop Example
Slippery Slope Example

24. 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.
Appeals to False Authority Example
Faulty Causality
Faulty Causality Example
Straw Man Example

25. I don't support the President's foreign policy; look at the disastrous way he has taken care of our domestic economy.
Begging the Question EX.
Red herring Example
Ad hominem Example
Scare Tatics

26. 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
Ad hominem
Slippery Slope Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example

27. Everyone else is going out and getting drunk tonight - so you should too.
Faulty Analogy Example
Red herring Example
Either/Or. Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example

28. Either you support the president in everything he says and does or you are not a patriotic American
Either/Or. Example
Red herring Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Faulty Causality Example

29. This fallacy of argument recommends a course of action on the grounds that everyone else is following the same path.
Slippery Slope
Bandwagon appeal
Scare Tatics
Faulty Analogy Example

30. There's no way that anyone can argue that abortion is anything other than murder.
Non sequitur Example
Dogmatism Example
Appeals to False Authority
Begging the Question Example

31. 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.
Non sequitur
Either/Or.
Faulty Analogy Example
Faulty Analogy

32. 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.
Dogmatism Example
Ad hominem Example
Red Herring
Straw Man

33. Everyone else is displaying a flag - or a support our troops sticker on their car - therefore - you should too.
Non sequitur Example
Sentimental Appeals
Begging the Question Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example

34. The level of mercury in seafood may be unsafe - but what will fishers do to support their families?
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Slipper Slop Example
Begging the Question EX.
Red herring Example

35. 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
Sentimental Appeals
Bandwagon Appeal Example

36. 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
Non sequitur Example
Straw Man Example
Faulty Analogy

37. Relying on manipulatively heart-warming or heart-wrenching appeals to emotion to win support for what has not been otherwise rationally justified.
Begging the Question EX.
Red Herring Example
Either/Or.
Sentimental Appeals

38. 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
Either/Or. Example
Sentimental Appeals Example
Begging the Question Example
Faulty Analogy Example

39. 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.
Either/Or. Example
Ad hominem Example
Appeals to False Authority
Red herring Example

40. Green Peace's strategies aren't effective because they are all dirty - lazy hippies.
Begging the Question EX.
Ad hominem Example
Non sequitur Example
Scare Tatics

41. Filthy and polluting coal should be banned.
Hasty Generalization Example
Either/Or. Example
Begging the Question Example
Sentimental Appeals

42. 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.
Equivocation
Dogmatism Example
Ad hominem Example
Non sequitur Example

43. 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.
Either/Or. Example
Red herring Example
Straw Man Example
Non sequitur

44. 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
Ad hominem Example
Dogmatism
Begging the Question EX.

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

46. This is a conclusion that oversimplifies the argument by reducing it only to two sides or choices.
Either/Or.
Either/Or. Example
Faulty Causality Example
Hasty Generalization Example

47. This argumentative fallacy in which the rhetor frames an issue in terms of exaggerated threats or dangers.
Dogmatism
Either/Or. Example
Faulty Analogy
Scare Tatics

48. This argument gives a lie an honest appearance - by insisting on What is only partially or formally true.
Begging the Question Example
Non sequitur Example
Equivocation
Hasty Generalization Example

49. I knew a gay guy who was not very masculine; this just goes to show that gay guys are more effeminate than straight men.
Hasty Generalization Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Faulty Causality Example
Equivocation

50. 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
Ad hominem Example
Slippery Slope
Hasty Generalization Example