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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. 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.
Sentimental Appeals
Appeals to False Authority Example
Either/Or. Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex

2. 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
Faulty Causality Example
Hasty Generalization
Faulty Analogy Example

3. 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
Ad hominem Example
Dogmatism
Hasty Generalization Example

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 Analogy Example
Slippery Slope Example
Bandwagon appeal
Non sequitur

5. There's no way that anyone can argue that abortion is anything other than murder.
Begging the Question
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Red herring Example
Dogmatism Example

6. You can't give me a C - I'm an A student.
Appeals to False Authority Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Dogmatism Example
Begging the Question EX.

7. 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.
Bandwagon appeal
Faulty Causality Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Slippery Slope Example

8. This is a conclusion that oversimplifies the argument by reducing it only to two sides or choices.
Either/Or.
Bandwagon appeal
Straw Man Example
Appeals to False Authority Example

9. 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.
Red Herring Example
Ad hominem Example
Non sequitur Example
Scare Tatics Example

10. Filthy and polluting coal should be banned.
Hasty Generalization Example
Either/Or.
Faulty Analogy Example
Begging the Question Example

11. 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
Appeals to False Authority
Slippery Slope
Ad hominem

12. 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
Faulty Analogy Example
Begging the Question
Either/Or. Example

13. This argumentative fallacy in which the rhetor frames an issue in terms of exaggerated threats or dangers.
Scare Tatics
Either/Or. Example
Red herring Example
Appeals to False Authority Example

14. 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
Red herring Example
Begging the Question EX.
Hasty Generalization

15. 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.
Straw Man
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Either/Or. Example
Faulty Causality

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.
Equivocation Example
Dogmatism Example
Slippery Slope Example
Dogmatism Example

17. This is a conclusion based on insufficient evidence. In other words - you are rushing to a conclusion before you have all the relevant facts.
Dogmatism
Faulty Causality Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Hasty Generalization

18. 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.
Dogmatism Example
Begging the Question
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Begging the Question Example

19. 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
Red Herring
Faulty Analogy
Slipper Slop Example

20. 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
Non sequitur Example
Non sequitur
Sentimental Appeals

21. This argument gives a lie an honest appearance - by insisting on What is only partially or formally true.
Faulty Causality Example
Sentimental Appeals
Equivocation
Faulty Analogy

22. 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.
Non sequitur
Ad hominem Example
Equivocation
Slippery Slope

23. 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
Non sequitur
Appeals to False Authority Example
Either/Or. Example

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

25. This is an attack on the character of a person rather than her/his opinions or arguments.
Slipper Slop Example
Bandwagon appeal
Sentimental Appeals
Ad hominem

26. 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
Appeals to False Authority
Faulty Analogy Example
Straw Man Example

27. 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 Example
Dogmatism Example
Sentimental Appeals Example
Dogmatism

28. Either you worship God or you worship Satan.
Red Herring
Slippery Slope Example
Either/Or. Example
Scare Tatics Example

29. I drank bottled water and now I am sick - so the water must have made me sick.
Faulty Causality Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Begging the Question Example
Equivocation Example

30. 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
Ad hominem
Appeals to False Authority Example
Equivocation

31. 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
Faulty Causality Example
Begging the Question Example

32. 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.
Dogmatism
Scare Tatics Example
Slippery Slope Example
Begging the Question

33. If we can Hummers because they are bad for the environment eventually the government will ban all cars - so we should not ban hummers.
Ad hominem Example
Slippery Slope
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Slipper Slop Example

34. Everyone else is going out and getting drunk tonight - so you should too.
Begging the Question Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Non sequitur Example
Slippery Slope Example

35. 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.
Appeals to False Authority Example
Equivocation Example
Sentimental Appeals
Non sequitur Example

36. Even though it's only the first day - I can tell this is going to be a boring course.
Sentimental Appeals
Equivocation Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Slippery Slope

37. 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
Red herring Example
Either/Or. Example

38. Because of the possibility of a terrorist hijacking or mechanical failure - flying on a plane is too dangerous and should be avoided altogether.
Slippery Slope Example
Scare Tatics Example
Non sequitur Example
Red Herring Example

39. 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)
Equivocation Example
Faulty Causality Example
Red herring Example
Dogmatism Example

40. She is feminist; she must hate men.
Slipper Slop Example
Non sequitur Example
Ad hominem
Non sequitur

41. Green Peace's strategies aren't effective because they are all dirty - lazy hippies.
Faulty Analogy
Hasty Generalization Example
Dogmatism
Ad hominem Example

42. I can't be guilty of embezzlement; I'm an honest person.
Scare Tatics Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Scare Tatics
Begging the Question Example

43. 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
Begging the Question Example
Begging the Question Example

44. Either you support the president in everything he says and does or you are not a patriotic American
Slippery Slope
Either/Or. Example
Ad hominem
Faulty Causality Example

45. The level of mercury in seafood may be unsafe - but what will fishers do to support their families?
Red herring Example
Slippery Slope Example
Begging the Question Example
Begging the Question

46. We can either stop using cars or destroy the earth.
Either/Or. Example
Begging the Question
Straw Man
Equivocation Example

47. I don't support the President's foreign policy; look at the disastrous way he has taken care of our domestic economy.
Faulty Causality
Straw Man Example
Faulty Causality Example
Red herring Example

48. This fallacy of argument recommends a course of action on the grounds that everyone else is following the same path.
Bandwagon appeal
Red herring Example
Either/Or. Example
Scare Tatics Example

49. 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.
Ad hominem
Straw Man Example
Scare Tatics Example
Hasty Generalization

50. 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
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Sentimental Appeals Example
Scare Tatics Example