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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. 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.)






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.






3. 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.






4. Filthy and polluting coal should be banned.






5. 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






6. There's no way that anyone can argue that abortion is anything other than murder.






7. 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.






8. Because of the possibility of a terrorist hijacking or mechanical failure - flying on a plane is too dangerous and should be avoided altogether.






9. This sort of argument relies on the faulty assumption that because one event follows another - the second necessarily causes the first






10. 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.






11. 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.






12. 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.






13. I can't be guilty of embezzlement; I'm an honest person.






14. 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.






15. Either you support the president in everything he says and does or you are not a patriotic American






16. This is a conclusion based on insufficient evidence. In other words - you are rushing to a conclusion before you have all the relevant facts.






17. 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.






18. Either you worship God or you worship Satan.






19. 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.






20. Green Peace's strategies aren't effective because they are all dirty - lazy hippies.






21. We can either stop using cars or destroy the earth.






22. 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.






23. 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.






24. 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.






25. This argumentative fallacy in which the rhetor frames an issue in terms of exaggerated threats or dangers.






26. 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.






27. 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.






28. I knew a gay guy who was not very masculine; this just goes to show that gay guys are more effeminate than straight men.






29. The level of mercury in seafood may be unsafe - but what will fishers do to support their families?






30. This is a diversionary tactic that avoid key issues - often by avoiding opposing arguments rather than addressing them.






31. She is feminist; she must hate men.






32. Here's what I think about what you have written: anyone who opposes the death penalty for murder is a criminal at heart.






33. This is a conclusion that oversimplifies the argument by reducing it only to two sides or choices.






34. I don't support the President's foreign policy; look at the disastrous way he has taken care of our domestic economy.






35. I drank bottled water and now I am sick - so the water must have made me sick.






36. This argument gives a lie an honest appearance - by insisting on What is only partially or formally true.






37. Relying on manipulatively heart-warming or heart-wrenching appeals to emotion to win support for what has not been otherwise rationally justified.






38. If we can Hummers because they are bad for the environment eventually the government will ban all cars - so we should not ban hummers.






39. Even though it's only the first day - I can tell this is going to be a boring course.






40. 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






41. This is an attack on the character of a person rather than her/his opinions or arguments.






42. 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.






43. 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.






44. Everyone else is going out and getting drunk tonight - so you should too.






45. 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.






46. 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.






47. This fallacy of argument recommends a course of action on the grounds that everyone else is following the same path.






48. Everyone else is displaying a flag - or a support our troops sticker on their car - therefore - you should too.






49. 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.






50. If you restrict my right to say whatever I want however I want this is the beginning of totalitarianism in America.