CCTST Argument Assessment 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A politician argues: 'We should not legalize recreational marijuana because my colleague who supports legalization was once arrested for drug possession.' This is an example of which fallacy?
- Straw man
- Ad hominem (Correct answer)
- Appeal to authority
- False dilemma
Correct answer: Ad hominem
Attacking the personal history of the person making an argument rather than addressing the argument itself is an ad hominem fallacy.
Question 2: Which of the following best describes a 'cogent' argument in the context of inductive reasoning?
- An argument where the conclusion must be true if the premises are true
- A strong inductive argument with true premises (Correct answer)
- An argument that avoids all emotional language
- A deductive argument with a valid logical structure
Correct answer: A strong inductive argument with true premises
A cogent argument is an inductive argument that is both strong (the premises make the conclusion probable) and has true premises.
Question 3: Maria says: 'Either you support this policy completely or you are against helping the poor.' What is wrong with this argument?
- It uses circular reasoning
- It presents a false dilemma by ignoring middle-ground positions (Correct answer)
- It appeals to the emotions of the audience
- It makes a hasty generalization
Correct answer: It presents a false dilemma by ignoring middle-ground positions
This is a false dilemma (false dichotomy) because it presents only two extreme options when other positions likely exist.
Question 4: An argument's conclusion that 'All swans are white' is drawn from observing 500 white swans with no counter-examples. This argument is best described as:
- Deductively valid but not sound
- Inductively strong but not deductively valid (Correct answer)
- Both valid and sound
- Fallacious due to circular reasoning
Correct answer: Inductively strong but not deductively valid
Generalizing from observed cases to a universal claim is inductive reasoning, which can be strong but is never deductively valid since a single counter-example could defeat it.
Question 5: In evaluating an argument, which question is MOST important to ask about the premises?
- Are the premises stated in formal language?
- Do the premises provide adequate evidence for the conclusion? (Correct answer)
- Are the premises longer than the conclusion?
- Were the premises written by an expert?
Correct answer: Do the premises provide adequate evidence for the conclusion?
The central evaluative question is whether the premises actually support or provide sufficient evidence for the conclusion being drawn.
Question 6: A researcher concludes: 'Since countries with higher chocolate consumption have more Nobel laureates, chocolate consumption causes intellectual achievement.' What error is present?
- Equivocation fallacy
- Conflating correlation with causation (Correct answer)
- Appeal to ignorance
- Slippery slope fallacy
Correct answer: Conflating correlation with causation
The argument confuses a statistical correlation between two variables with a causal relationship, ignoring possible confounding factors.
Question 7: Which scenario demonstrates a 'straw man' fallacy?
- Arguing that because one expert agrees, all experts must agree
- Misrepresenting an opponent's view as more extreme to make it easier to attack (Correct answer)
- Drawing a conclusion from too few examples
- Asserting that something is true because it has not been proven false
Correct answer: Misrepresenting an opponent's view as more extreme to make it easier to attack
A straw man fallacy involves distorting or exaggerating an opponent's position into a weaker version that is easier to refute.
CCTST Argument Assessment 2
A politician argues: 'We should not legalize recreational marijuana because my colleague who supports legalization was once arrested for drug possession.' This is an example of which fallacy?