7 Written Questions

1. extended comparison to help understand unfamiliar themes to familiar ideas; inaccurate/inconsequential comparisons between objects/concepts ("Students in Kindergarten at Jefferson Elementary School did better when given milk and cookies in class than when not; therefore students at UWEC will do better too if they are given milk and cookies in class.")
2. arguments that urge people to follow the same path everyone else is taking ("Everyone else is going out and getting drunk tonight, so you should too.")
3. attacks directed at the character of a person rather than claims he/she makes ("I used to think that way when I was your age.")
4. process that moves from a given series of specifics to general conclusions ("All of the ice we have examined so far is cold. Therefore, all ice is cold.")
5. a.k.a. begging the question; argument whose premises is its conclusion; attempt to support theory by repeating statement ("You can't give me a C. I'm an A student.")
6. argument flawed by very nature; misuse of legitimate argumentative forms; raises questions about ethics of argument; destroys ethos, corrupts logos
7. takes advantage of notion that one thing leads to another through exaggeration ("If we legalize gay marriage, humans will eventually be marrying animals.")

6 Multiple Choice Questions

1. attacking nonexistent arguments; attributing to our opponents a weak or indefensible position they don't hold ("Person A: We should liberalize laws on beer. Person B: No, any society with unrestricted access to intoxicants loses its work ethic and goes only for immediate gratification.")
   1. Claim
   2. Example
   3. Straw Man
   4. Fallacy
2. reduces options to 2 choices; makes 1 choice appear better ("You can clean your room or not go out with friends for a month.")
   1. Straw Man
   2. Either/or Fallacy
   3. Fallacy
   4. Slippery Slope
3. individual instance taken to represent general pattern
   1. Fallacy
   2. Enthymeme
   3. Claim
   4. Example
4. assertion of something as fact in argument
   1. Syllogism
   2. Claim
   3. Example
   4. Fallacy
5. "reckoning together"; deductive system of formal logic that presents 2 premises (1 major, 1 minor) to get a conclusion ("All mortals die. Men are mortals. All men die.")
   1. Fallacy
   2. Straw Man
   3. Syllogism
   4. Claim
6. argument technique wherein opposing arguments are anticipated and countered
   1. Faulty Causality
   2. Generalization
   3. Rebuttal/Refutation
   4. Hasty Generalization

6 True/False Questions

1. Deduction/Deductive reasoning → process of moving from general rule to specific example ("All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.")

   True        False

2. Hasty Generalization → bases a claim on an isolated example or asserts that a claim is certain rather than plausible

   True        False

3. Enthymeme → informal syllogism in which one premises is unstated/assumed; includes both a claim and reason and depends on the audience's agreement with the implicit assumption ("We'd better cancel the picnic because it is going to rain.")

   True        False

4. Non-Sequitur → does not follow; argument in which claims/reasons fail to connect logically ("You must not love me because you haven't bought me a puppy.")

   True        False

5. Generalization → inference drawn from insufficient evidence; stereotypes ("Because my iPod breaks, all iPods break.")

   True        False

6. Faulty Causality → assumption that because one event follow another, the first caused the second ("The administration closed the smoking court in our school at the end of last year, and fights among students have gone down this year; therefore, closing the smoking court caused the reduction in fights among students.")

   True        False