Critical Thinking Test

Name: Don’t Forget!

Date:

 

Unit Four Test

 

Download this test on your computer, For Section I, complete the questions by indicating correct answers with the “text color” function in WORD, located on the “Home” toolbar. The other sections are short-answer. Save your completed test as a WORD document, naming it “Your-last-name+first -initial, Test 4”, and attach it to the test submission page.

 

 

Section I:

 

1. “So what’s your choice? Are you forTrump or for Hillary?”

a. attacking the motive

b. loaded question

c. false alternatives

d. personal attack

 

2. The fallacy sometimes referred to as arguing in a circle is the fallacy of

a. false dilemma

b. slippery slope

c. begging the question

d. hasty generalization

 

 

3. The type of ad hominem fallacy that arguess that a claim must be true (or false) just because of the character of its proponent is called

a. personal attack

b. look who’s talking

c. equivocation

d. red herring

 

4. Which of the following is a good example of a bandwagon fallacy?

a. Her new novel is very popular. It’s been on the best seller list for weeks

b. Violent crime went down in Hollister this year. More than 70% of the people surveyed said there were fewer rapes, robberies, and murders than last year.

c. Did you see where more people moved out of California last year than moved in? I guess living in California is no longer everyone’s dream.

d. Of course this war is justified. Just look at the public’s enthusiastic support!

 

5. “Did you enjoy breaking your grandmother’s heart by being late for the ceremony?” is best described as a fallacy of:

a. attacking the motive

b. loaded question

c. false alternatives

d. personal attack

 

6. Fallacies of insufficient evidence are fallacies that occur because the premises provide no reason at all to support the conclusion.

True

False

 

7. If we could prove something via a lack of evidence, we could prove almost anything.

True

False

 

8. If a person cites a source in support of a conclusion and there is good reason to believe that the source has been cited incorrectly, then the person commits the fallacy of inappropriate appeal to authority.

True

False

 

9. The following argument commits the fallacy of begging the question: “Socrates must be mortal, because all men are mortal, and Socrates is a man.”

True

False

 

10. In the appeal to ignorance fallacy, the arguer falsely accuses another arguer of being ignorant.

True

False

 

 

Section II: Name that Fallacy

 

Please identify the fallacies in the following examples. In some cases, there may be more than one. If there is no fallacy, please indicate “no fallacy”.

 

(It may happen that in some case you [successfully] identify a different fallacy than I had in mind. This is OK, and actually desirable, although I may ask you to explain/defend your answer to get credit.)

 

For some examples, I will also ask you to (1) define the fallacy you have identified (“Define:”), or (2) to explain why/how the example commits the fallacy in question, resp. how it is that there is no fallacy committed (“Explain:”) or (3) to provide another example that exemplifies (commits, demonstrates) the fallacy in question (“Exemplify”).

Definitions may be in your own words; I do not expect you to repeat Basshams’s definitions verbatim.

 

NOTE: In the past, some students really got. . . by confusing “define”, “explain” and“exemplify”, so let’s be 100% clear.

 

Our example:

“Joe argues taxes are so high they are destroying the economy, but that can‘t be right! After all, Joe is a right-wing atheist fundamentalist gay-liberationist commie!”

 

1. Define: (=Tell me what the fallacy is.)

Personal Attack/Ad hominem fallacy: Attacking the presenter of an argument rather than the argument itself.

 

2. Explain: (=Why is the case in question fallacious? How does the fallacy work?)

Whatever Joe is or isn’t (sounds like he’s quite a guy!) has no bearing on the correctness and strength of his arguments about taxes.

 

3. Exemplify (= present another instance of the respective fallacy.)

“The Sun reports that the police in Santa Maria are misusing power, but I wouldn’t worry about that! The Sun is just another of those left-wing, mother-hating rags!”

 

 

11. Congress has no choice but to support Senataor Spendthrift’s welfare proposals. After all, the Constitution says that Congress is obliged to do those things that promote the general welfare.

 

Fallacy:

 

 

12. Senator Jones wants to undercut our defense posture around the world by cutting our defense spending. Apparently he is out for reduction of our forces in strategic capacities, and withdrawing in shame from the world stage.

 

Fallacy:

 

12a Explain:

 

 

13. OK, so I haven’t been paying for my coffee over at the department offices. So what’s the big deal, half the faculty doesn’t either!

 

Fallacy:

 

 

14. IRS agent: Mr. Peckinsniff, there is nothing in these documents that proves that you haven’t been cheating on your taxes. Therefore, we must assume that you have been cheating the whole time!

 

Fallacy:

 

 

15. Virginia Military Academy should remain an all-male instutution. Those ignorant wimps trying to corrupt its traditions and undermine it’s purity and patriotic traditions with “the femine touch” are really the lowest of the low!

 

Fallacy:

 

15a. Exemplify:

 

 

16. The famous physicist Linus Pauling held that taking massive doses of Vitamin C was the key to good health and a veritable elixer of youth. Given the statements of so eminent a person as Pauling, we may be confident that taking large ddoeses of Vitamin C really is good for you.

 

Fallacy:

 

16a. Explain:

 

 

17. In a recent issue of Alcoholique magazine, Henri Daligault argues that French wines are far superior to German wines. But Daligault’s argument can’t be worth the paper it’s printed on, since he hates Germany because of happened to his family during the Second World War, and he would do anything he could to belittle her.

 

Fallacy:

 

 

18. Gambling is wrong, because it’s wrong to play at games of chance for stakes.

 

Fallacy:

 

 

18a. Exemplify:

 

 

19. Herbie: Are you still reading that wacky New Age magazine?

Alice: Yes.

Herbie: Well, at least you admit it’s wacky.

 

Fallacy:

 

19a. Define:

 

 

20. Legislators in Texas want to make it a criminal offense for citizens not to use seat belts when they drive. Mark my words: If they get away with this, it won’t be long before they ban beer drinking and cigarette smoking. Then they will restrict our intake of cholesterol, perhaps setting up cholesterol testing sites along major highways. We must not let this infringement of our liberties get started, or there will be no stopping it.

 

Fallacy:

 

20a. ExempIlfy:

 

 

21. Every year in March we sacrifice a virgin to the gods, and then in April the nourishing rains come. It’s March, so we better start looking for another virgin!

 

Fallacy:

 

 

22. The legislators should vote for the three-strikes-and-you’re-out crime control measure. I’m telling you, crime is a terrible thing when it happens to you. It causes death, pain and fear. And I wouldn’t want to wish those things on anyone!

 

Fallacy:

 

23. My last 3 boyfriend were rotters, and my cousin Cecilia was left high and dry when her squeeze took off with an exotic dancer. Looks like men are just nasty by nature.

 

Fallacy:

 

23a. Define:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unit 4 Test (161017) 3