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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. 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
Ad hominem Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Faulty Causality Example

2. Filthy and polluting coal should be banned.
Begging the Question
Equivocation Example
Begging the Question Example
Sentimental Appeals Example

3. Relying on manipulatively heart-warming or heart-wrenching appeals to emotion to win support for what has not been otherwise rationally justified.
Slippery Slope
Equivocation Example
Sentimental Appeals
Scare Tatics Example

4. 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)
Dogmatism
Equivocation Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Either/Or. Example

5. The level of mercury in seafood may be unsafe - but what will fishers do to support their families?
Scare Tatics Example
Red herring Example
Ad hominem Example
Straw Man Example

6. 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 Analogy
Appeals to False Authority Example
Slippery Slope Example

7. 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.
Straw Man
Non sequitur
Bandwagon appeal
Appeals to False Authority Example

8. This is a conclusion based on insufficient evidence. In other words - you are rushing to a conclusion before you have all the relevant facts.
Begging the Question
Appeals to False Authority Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Hasty Generalization

9. Everyone else is displaying a flag - or a support our troops sticker on their car - therefore - you should too.
Slippery Slope Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Begging the Question EX.
Faulty Analogy Example

10. 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.
Either/Or. Example
Sentimental Appeals Example
Ad hominem Example
Dogmatism Example

11. This is a conclusion that oversimplifies the argument by reducing it only to two sides or choices.
Red herring Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Either/Or.
Either/Or. Example

12. This sort of argument relies on the faulty assumption that because one event follows another - the second necessarily causes the first
Red Herring Example
Faulty Causality
Sentimental Appeals Example
Non sequitur

13. 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
Hasty Generalization Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Dogmatism

14. 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
Faulty Causality Example
Equivocation

15. 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.
Sentimental Appeals Example
Straw Man Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Begging the Question Example

16. 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
Either/Or. Example
Non sequitur
Dogmatism Example

17. This fallacy of argument recommends a course of action on the grounds that everyone else is following the same path.
Ad hominem Example
Scare Tatics Example
Bandwagon appeal
Straw Man

18. 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
Equivocation Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Straw Man

19. 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.
Begging the Question
Faulty Analogy Example
Slippery Slope
Sentimental Appeals. Ex

20. 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
Non sequitur
Dogmatism Example
Appeals to False Authority Example

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

22. 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 Example
Red herring Example
Non sequitur
Non sequitur Example

23. I drank bottled water and now I am sick - so the water must have made me sick.
Scare Tatics Example
Faulty Causality Example
Sentimental Appeals Example
Slipper Slop Example

24. If you restrict my right to say whatever I want however I want this is the beginning of totalitarianism in America.
Either/Or.
Slippery Slope Example
Dogmatism Example
Ad hominem Example

25. 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.
Slippery Slope Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Faulty Analogy
Dogmatism Example

26. 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
Ad hominem
Red Herring Example
Slippery Slope Example

27. I can't be guilty of embezzlement; I'm an honest person.
Either/Or. Example
Begging the Question Example
Equivocation Example
Bandwagon appeal

28. Even though it's only the first day - I can tell this is going to be a boring course.
Hasty Generalization Example
Begging the Question EX.
Faulty Causality Example
Appeals to False Authority Example

29. This is an attack on the character of a person rather than her/his opinions or arguments.
Red Herring Example
Ad hominem
Hasty Generalization
Dogmatism

30. We can either stop using cars or destroy the earth.
Faulty Analogy Example
Slipper Slop Example
Either/Or. Example
Slippery Slope

31. Either you worship God or you worship Satan.
Faulty Analogy Example
Ad hominem Example
Either/Or. Example
Slipper Slop 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.
Appeals to False Authority Example
Red herring Example
Either/Or.
Slippery Slope

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

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

35. You can't give me a C - I'm an A student.
Straw Man
Either/Or. Example
Equivocation
Begging the Question EX.

36. There's no way that anyone can argue that abortion is anything other than murder.
Dogmatism Example
Non sequitur
Slippery Slope Example
Begging the Question EX.

37. 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
Red Herring Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Straw Man Example

38. 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.
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Faulty Analogy Example
Ad hominem

39. This argument gives a lie an honest appearance - by insisting on What is only partially or formally true.
Hasty Generalization Example
Faulty Causality Example
Equivocation
Red herring Example

40. This is a diversionary tactic that avoid key issues - often by avoiding opposing arguments rather than addressing them.
Scare Tatics
Faulty Causality Example
Red Herring
Dogmatism Example

41. 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
Either/Or. Example
Bandwagon appeal
Faulty Analogy Example

42. 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.
Begging the Question EX.
Straw Man Example
Straw Man
Red herring Example

43. 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 Causality Example
Straw Man
Faulty Analogy
Dogmatism

44. 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.
Appeals to False Authority Example
Non sequitur
Appeals to False Authority Example
Faulty Analogy

45. 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.
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Equivocation Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Appeals to False Authority

46. 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.
Begging the Question EX.
Non sequitur Example
Either/Or. Example
Slippery Slope

47. This argumentative fallacy in which the rhetor frames an issue in terms of exaggerated threats or dangers.
Sentimental Appeals
Scare Tatics
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Dogmatism

48. She is feminist; she must hate men.
Sentimental Appeals Example
Ad hominem Example
Non sequitur Example
Either/Or. Example

49. Here's what I think about what you have written: anyone who opposes the death penalty for murder is a criminal at heart.
Hasty Generalization
Hasty Generalization Example
Ad hominem Example
Faulty Causality

50. 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 Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Faulty Analogy