Evaluating arguments

Identify the logical fallacy in each of the following passages.

Click Submit after each question to see feedback and to record your answer. After you have finished every question, your answers will be submitted to your instructor’s gradebook. You may review your answers by returning to the exercise at any time. (An exercise reports to the gradebook only if your instructor has assigned it.)

For help with this exercise, see Reading arguments.

Question 1 of 10

Question 1. Whenever I wash my car, it rains. I have discovered a way to end all droughts—get all the people to wash their cars.
Evaluating arguments – 1

Question 2 of 10

Question 2. Either you can learn how to design a Web site or you won’t be able to get a decent job after college.
Evaluating arguments – 2

Question 3 of 10

Question 3. College professors tend to be sarcastic. Three of my five professors this semester make sarcastic remarks.
Evaluating arguments – 3

Question 4 of 10

Question 4. Although Martin Bell’s book on Joe DiMaggio was well researched, I doubt that an Australian historian can contribute much to our knowledge of an American baseball player.
Evaluating arguments – 4

Question 5 of 10

Question 5. Slacker co-workers and crazy, big-mouthed clients make our spineless managers impose ridiculous workloads on us hardworking, conscientious employees.
Evaluating arguments – 5

Question 6 of 10

Question 6. If professional sports teams didn’t pay athletes such high salaries, we wouldn’t have so many kids breaking their legs at hockey and basketball camps.
Evaluating arguments – 6

Question 7 of 10

Question 7. Ninety percent of the students oppose a tuition increase; therefore, the board of trustees should not pass the proposed increase.
Evaluating arguments – 7

Question 8 of 10

Question 8. If more people would take a long, close look at businesses like Microsoft and Amazon, they could reorganize their family lives more efficiently.
Evaluating arguments – 8

Question 9 of 10

Question 9. A mandatory ten-cent deposit on bottles and cans will eliminate litter because everyone I know will return the containers for the money rather than throw them away.
Evaluating arguments – 9

Question 10 of 10

Question 10. Researching what voters think during an election campaign is useless because most citizens don’t vote anyway.
Evaluating arguments – 10