Identifying Arguments
Exercise
Which of the following are arguments? If it is an argument,
identify the conclusion of the argument.
- The woman in the hat is not a witch since witches have long noses and
she doesn't have a long nose.
- I have been wrangling cattle since before you were old enough to tie
your own shoes.
- Albert is angry with me so he probably won't be willing to help me wash
the dishes.
- First I washed the dishes and then I dried them.
- If the road wasn't icy, the car wouldn't have slid off the turn.
- Albert isn't a fireman and he isn't a fisherman either.
- Are you seeing that rhinoceros over there? It is huge!
- The fact that obesity has become a problem in the U.S. is shown by the
fact that obesity rates have risen significantly over the past four decades.
- Bob showed me a graph with the rising obesity rates and I was very
surprised to see how much they've risen.
- Albert isn't a fireman because Albert is a Greyhound, which is a kind of
dog, and dogs can't be firemen.
- Charlie and Violet are dogs and since dogs don't sweat, it is obvious that
Charlie and Violet don't sweat.
- The reason I forgot to lock the door is that I was distracted by the clown
riding a unicycle down our street while singing Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Simple
Man".
- What Bob told you is not the real reason that he missed his plane to
Denver.
- Samsung stole some of Apple's patents for their smartphones, so Apple
stole some of Samsung's patents back in retaliation.
- No one who has ever gotten frostbite while climbing K2 has survived to
tell about it, therefore no one ever will.