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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. 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.
Dogmatism
Hasty Generalization Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Red herring Example

2. 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
Sentimental Appeals Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Appeals to False Authority Example

3. 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.
Scare Tatics Example
Sentimental Appeals Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Faulty Analogy 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
Slippery Slope Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Red Herring Example
Hasty Generalization Example

5. This is a diversionary tactic that avoid key issues - often by avoiding opposing arguments rather than addressing them.
Ad hominem Example
Faulty Causality Example
Red Herring
Bandwagon Appeal Example

6. 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.
Faulty Analogy
Ad hominem Example
Non sequitur
Bandwagon appeal

7. 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
Equivocation Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Scare Tatics Example

8. 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
Faulty Causality
Non sequitur
Straw Man Example

9. Filthy and polluting coal should be banned.
Hasty Generalization Example
Begging the Question Example
Equivocation
Dogmatism Example

10. Relying on manipulatively heart-warming or heart-wrenching appeals to emotion to win support for what has not been otherwise rationally justified.
Sentimental Appeals
Red Herring
Ad hominem
Straw Man Example

11. 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
Faulty Analogy
Slippery Slope Example
Scare Tatics Example

12. Everyone else is going out and getting drunk tonight - so you should too.
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Begging the Question Example
Red herring Example
Equivocation Example

13. 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
Non sequitur Example
Slippery Slope Example
Non sequitur Example

14. 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
Either/Or. Example
Non sequitur
Scare Tatics Example

15. This is a conclusion that oversimplifies the argument by reducing it only to two sides or choices.
Equivocation Example
Straw Man Example
Either/Or.
Hasty Generalization Example

16. 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.
Faulty Analogy
Non sequitur Example
Faulty Causality Example
Begging the Question EX.

17. 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
Dogmatism Example
Ad hominem Example
Faulty Causality Example

18. You can't give me a C - I'm an A student.
Faulty Causality Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Begging the Question EX.
Sentimental Appeals. Ex

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.
Hasty Generalization
Scare Tatics Example
Faulty Causality Example
Faulty Analogy Example

20. 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
Begging the Question EX.
Sentimental Appeals Example
Red herring Example
Ad hominem

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.
Scare Tatics Example
Faulty Causality
Red herring Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex

22. Here's what I think about what you have written: anyone who opposes the death penalty for murder is a criminal at heart.
Slipper Slop Example
Red herring Example
Non sequitur
Ad hominem 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.
Faulty Causality Example
Dogmatism
Hasty Generalization
Faulty Causality

24. 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
Slippery Slope
Dogmatism Example
Either/Or. Example

25. I drank bottled water and now I am sick - so the water must have made me sick.
Straw Man Example
Faulty Causality Example
Red herring Example
Ad hominem Example

26. 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.
Begging the Question
Begging the Question Example
Appeals to False Authority
Equivocation Example

27. 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
Equivocation

28. This argumentative fallacy in which the rhetor frames an issue in terms of exaggerated threats or dangers.
Appeals to False Authority Example
Scare Tatics
Equivocation
Slippery Slope Example

29. This fallacy of argument recommends a course of action on the grounds that everyone else is following the same path.
Red Herring
Begging the Question Example
Bandwagon appeal
Red Herring Example

30. Green Peace's strategies aren't effective because they are all dirty - lazy hippies.
Hasty Generalization
Ad hominem Example
Scare Tatics Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex

31. There's no way that anyone can argue that abortion is anything other than murder.
Slippery Slope Example
Ad hominem Example
Appeals to False Authority
Dogmatism Example

32. This sort of argument relies on the faulty assumption that because one event follows another - the second necessarily causes the first
Faulty Causality
Hasty Generalization Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Begging the Question Example

33. 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.
Hasty Generalization Example
Scare Tatics Example
Red herring Example
Red Herring Example

34. Either you worship God or you worship Satan.
Slippery Slope Example
Ad hominem Example
Non sequitur Example
Either/Or. Example

35. If you restrict my right to say whatever I want however I want this is the beginning of totalitarianism in America.
Slippery Slope Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Dogmatism Example
Begging the Question Example

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

37. I can't be guilty of embezzlement; I'm an honest person.
Hasty Generalization Example
Equivocation
Equivocation Example
Begging the Question Example

38. 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.
Either/Or. Example
Faulty Analogy
Dogmatism Example
Bandwagon appeal

39. 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
Dogmatism Example
Equivocation Example
Ad hominem Example

40. 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
Faulty Causality Example
Red Herring Example
Equivocation

41. 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
Hasty Generalization Example
Sentimental Appeals
Equivocation Example

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.
Ad hominem Example
Straw Man Example
Hasty Generalization
Either/Or. Example

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.
Faulty Analogy Example
Slippery Slope Example
Slippery Slope
Either/Or. Example

44. Everyone else is displaying a flag - or a support our troops sticker on their car - therefore - you should too.
Ad hominem Example
Begging the Question
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Hasty Generalization Example

45. 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
Faulty Causality Example
Slippery Slope Example
Begging the Question EX.

46. She is feminist; she must hate men.
Hasty Generalization Example
Ad hominem Example
Non sequitur Example
Hasty Generalization Example

47. This is an attack on the character of a person rather than her/his opinions or arguments.
Equivocation Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Ad hominem
Non sequitur Example

48. 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 Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Ad hominem Example

49. 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.
Red Herring Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Ad hominem Example

50. Either you support the president in everything he says and does or you are not a patriotic American
Faulty Causality
Either/Or. Example
Bandwagon appeal
Begging the Question