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

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.
Faulty Analogy Example
Dogmatism Example
Ad hominem Example
Begging the Question Example

3. 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 Example
Hasty Generalization
Ad hominem
Bandwagon Appeal 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)
Ad hominem Example
Equivocation Example
Sentimental Appeals
Dogmatism Example

5. Even though it's only the first day - I can tell this is going to be a boring course.
Hasty Generalization Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Equivocation Example
Ad hominem

6. 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.)
Begging the Question
Dogmatism
Equivocation Example
Scare Tatics Example

7. I drank bottled water and now I am sick - so the water must have made me sick.
Faulty Causality Example
Red Herring
Either/Or. Example
Appeals to False Authority Example

8. This is a conclusion that oversimplifies the argument by reducing it only to two sides or choices.
Non sequitur
Either/Or.
Slippery Slope Example
Ad hominem Example

9. Either you worship God or you worship Satan.
Appeals to False Authority
Begging the Question EX.
Either/Or. Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex

10. 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.
Begging the Question
Faulty Analogy Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Faulty Analogy

11. Everyone else is displaying a flag - or a support our troops sticker on their car - therefore - you should too.
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Scare Tatics Example
Sentimental Appeals Example
Non sequitur

12. If we can Hummers because they are bad for the environment eventually the government will ban all cars - so we should not ban hummers.
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Slipper Slop Example
Begging the Question
Either/Or. Example

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 Analogy Example
Either/Or. Example
Scare Tatics
Hasty Generalization Example

14. 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
Ad hominem Example
Ad hominem Example
Red Herring Example

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.
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Either/Or. Example
Slippery Slope Example
Red herring Example

16. 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.
Ad hominem Example
Non sequitur Example
Scare Tatics Example
Dogmatism Example

17. 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.
Straw Man Example
Slippery Slope Example
Appeals to False Authority
Ad hominem Example

18. This is an attack on the character of a person rather than her/his opinions or arguments.
Non sequitur Example
Sentimental Appeals
Ad hominem
Either/Or. Example

19. 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.
Scare Tatics Example
Scare Tatics
Ad hominem
Slippery Slope

20. 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.
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Hasty Generalization Example
Scare Tatics Example
Non sequitur Example

21. 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.
Red Herring Example
Ad hominem Example
Scare Tatics Example
Begging the Question

22. 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 Example
Straw Man
Faulty Analogy Example
Dogmatism Example

23. 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.
Non sequitur
Faulty Causality Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Either/Or. Example

24. 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
Red Herring Example
Slipper Slop Example
Hasty Generalization Example

25. We can either stop using cars or destroy the earth.
Either/Or. Example
Slipper Slop Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Slippery Slope Example

26. If you restrict my right to say whatever I want however I want this is the beginning of totalitarianism in America.
Begging the Question Example
Slipper Slop Example
Non sequitur Example
Slippery Slope Example

27. She is feminist; she must hate men.
Equivocation Example
Red Herring
Red Herring Example
Non sequitur Example

28. There's no way that anyone can argue that abortion is anything other than murder.
Scare Tatics
Slippery Slope
Dogmatism Example
Ad hominem

29. 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.
Hasty Generalization Example
Appeals to False Authority Example
Begging the Question EX.
Ad hominem

30. 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.
Red herring Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Dogmatism
Non sequitur

31. I don't support the President's foreign policy; look at the disastrous way he has taken care of our domestic economy.
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Red herring Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Slippery Slope Example

32. 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
Either/Or. Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example

33. This fallacy of argument recommends a course of action on the grounds that everyone else is following the same path.
Either/Or. Example
Hasty Generalization Example
Bandwagon appeal
Dogmatism Example

34. 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.
Either/Or. Example
Sentimental Appeals. Ex
Sentimental Appeals Example
Appeals to False Authority Example

35. Filthy and polluting coal should be banned.
Slipper Slop Example
Begging the Question Example
Non sequitur Example
Red herring Example

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

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

38. Because of the possibility of a terrorist hijacking or mechanical failure - flying on a plane is too dangerous and should be avoided altogether.
Red Herring
Begging the Question Example
Scare Tatics Example
Sentimental Appeals Example

39. 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
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Slippery Slope
Ad hominem

40. 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.
Faulty Causality
Hasty Generalization Example
Straw Man Example
Non sequitur Example

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

42. The level of mercury in seafood may be unsafe - but what will fishers do to support their families?
Red herring Example
Faulty Analogy Example
Begging the Question Example
Scare Tatics

43. Here's what I think about what you have written: anyone who opposes the death penalty for murder is a criminal at heart.
Begging the Question Example
Equivocation Example
Ad hominem Example
Bandwagon appeal

44. This argument gives a lie an honest appearance - by insisting on What is only partially or formally true.
Equivocation Example
Equivocation
Begging the Question
Ad hominem Example

45. You can't give me a C - I'm an A student.
Ad hominem
Bandwagon appeal
Red Herring
Begging the Question EX.

46. I can't be guilty of embezzlement; I'm an honest person.
Slippery Slope Example
Begging the Question Example
Faulty Analogy
Faulty Analogy Example

47. Green Peace's strategies aren't effective because they are all dirty - lazy hippies.
Ad hominem Example
Appeals to False Authority
Sentimental Appeals Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example

48. 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.
Either/Or. Example
Straw Man Example
Scare Tatics Example
Sentimental Appeals

49. Everyone else is going out and getting drunk tonight - so you should too.
Slippery Slope Example
Slippery Slope Example
Bandwagon Appeal Example
Hasty Generalization Example

50. This argumentative fallacy in which the rhetor frames an issue in terms of exaggerated threats or dangers.
Bandwagon appeal
Red herring Example
Scare Tatics
Equivocation