Test Bank Questions

Choose the most accurate response.

1.
Guilt by association is which kind of fallacy?

a) Hasty Generalization
b) Deductive Fallacy
c) Slippery Slope
d) Inductive Fallacy

2.
To which need will an appeal (to a very broad audience) tend to be the most effective?

a) Self-actualization
b) Achievement
c) Sense of belonging
d) Stability

3.
Which isn’t a criterion for evaluating factual evidence?

a) Does the source have a biased interpretation?
b) Is the evidence current?
c) Are the examples consistent with the experience of the audience?
d) Are the examples representative?

4.
Which kind of appeal would be least likely to persuade a group of scientists?

a) Logos
b) Ethos
c) Objective
d) Pathos

Answers

1. B  2. D  3. A  4. D

Bundling Fear (or insecurities)

          Our society does have a problem with body image, and Jillian Croll makes this obvious in her work. From magazines to toys, almost everything tells us to pursue the unrealistic body image. The scaled measurements of the Barbie and Ken dolls show how relentless the media is when trying to influence body image; any person with those body size proportions would likely be considered a freak of nature. As Croll states, the soap operas and music videos perpetuate the unattainable body image and people who watch them have more dissatisfaction with their own bodies (539). The factors contributing to body image problems are straightforward; constant pressure from the media, peers, and family, and Croll notes all of these.
         The source of the problem seems to be the media, and it has spread to others over the years. People want to be like their idols, which means attaining the unrealistic body image. But it did not start with celebrities. A large part probably started with models who were extremely thin and tall. As that body image became more popular and spread from the runway, more people paid to try to be like those models, using beauty products, suggest diets, and magazines as their guide. Now companies market to these people using the unrealistic body image, and make tons of money because of it. Inventing new things to feel insecure about works off of the image too, such as a new armpit product which claims it gets rid of ugly armpits. With such a profitable market, the current body image is here to stay.

Croll, Jillian. "Body Image and Adolescents." Rpt. in Elements of Argument: A Text and Reader. Annette T. Rottenberg and Donna Haisty Winchell. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2006. 536-541. Print. 

Habitat for Humanity

          There seem to be few places touched by developers in Florida. Most plots of land have developers’ signs and still more houses are being built. Not too long ago some company cleared several plots past the Alico - Ben Hill Griffin Highway intersection, away from FGCU. The trees were burnt, then came bulldozers and other equipment to move the debris. Even the university was built on swampland, some of the original swamp remains but most has been drained and filled to accommodate parking lots and buildings. Towards where I live, there are fewer developers but this is because the area has already been developed.
         The rampant development causes multiple problems, not all of which are even environmental. The free range on land leads to developers doing whatever they want, and since the housing crisis, there have been a number of razed areas sitting empty. This careless destruction of the environment by the highest bidder to make room for houses nobody can buy is unacceptable. This style of developing also effectively puts the developers in control of city planning. This makes driving anywhere more difficult, as all the developers are competing for the best lots. They have no incentive to make the drive to their competitors’ lots easier. This is at least in part why downtown Fort Myers is pretty much nonexistent. It isn’t close by to most people and most of the malls are a ways away.
         One place without a developer problem would be Sanibel. It still has most of the environment intact as well. This is probably because most of the area is protected and the development is carefully managed. For example, chain stores aren’t allowed on the island; there are a few but only because the rule was enacted later. Fort Myers will never have Sanibel's planning but if development were managed more carefully, at least the current city centers won't become inconvenient drives, and the environment will be a great deal healthier.

Music analysis

          In hindsight, the Vietnam War probably wasn’t such a good idea. The war turned out to be so unpopular that to this day people opposed to wars will compare those to the Vietnam War. Many people marched to protest the war, others fled to Canada, and songwriters wrote their songs. With such a fervent rebellion, some protesters strayed from the main goal of simply ending the war, and chose war to combat the war rather than peace. The Beatles wrote “Revolution 1” to address these more radical revolutionaries. The British musicians advocate peace throughout the song rather than war, because supporting anything other than peace would undermine the protests’ goal of ending the war.
         From the calm and legato beat with a slow pace to the repetition of key phrases such as “it’s gonna be alright”, the song radiates tranquility enough to calm any bloodthirsty radical. Mentioning that carrying pictures of the communist leader of China does not help the radical cause adds to the message of peace as well. For a war that many people opposed so strongly, the Beatles used song to help make sure the peaceful protests remained peaceful. Other methods worked well for the protesters, but music definitely played a major role bracing the tripod of peace.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMhuDHh18_g

A Modest Proposal Indeed

          Johnathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" entails a brilliant plan to improve Ireland, and in particular, its economy. The plan solves completely several key issues plaguing the country at the time: high crime rate, poverty, and economic reliance on England. Swift demonstrates yet another benefit of selling year old children for food when he writes "[T]his food would likewise bring great custom to taverns, where the vintners will certainly be so prudent as to procure the best receipts for dressing it to perfection" (359). As Swift explains, people would travel from around the world to visit the Irish taverns, so they could have a taste of yearling child. One can see how this tradition would greatly benefit all of Ireland, people paying for a delicacy possibly exclusive to Ireland, extra income for many people, a more diverse economy (yearling children in addition to pork and beef), and even set a trend for Ireland having the most avant-garde food. In this fashion, Swift's suggestion would enable Ireland to create an economy stronger than that of England, and perhaps become a superpower.
          Of course, eating yearling children would simply be cannibalism, and would not be avante-garde in the slightest. The idea of putting a price on children based on how much food they would be is absurd as well. Swift hints that his work is a satire when he explains "I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children" (357). The landlords have not devoured any parents, and most likely gave many people a difficult time instead. That kind of irony appears throughout the paper, as nobody should expect Swift to be serious about such a suggestion, and thus the mock seriousness creates the irony. Another several clues are the references to other satirists of the time, from whom Swift cites dubious evidence. Despite such irony, Swift does have a serious message amidst the fake seriousness. The paper is a call to action, drawing attention to poverty's pervasiveness in Ireland. Although he does not offer a real solution, suggesting such drastic measures to combat the problem illustrates just how severe the issue is.

Swift, Jonathan. "A Modest Proposal." Elements of Argument: A Text and Reader. Annette T. Rottenberg and Donna Haisty Winchell. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2006. 354-361. Print.

What's a Flynn Effect?

     Johnson makes a solid argument for the Sleeper Curve causing the Flynn Effect by showing a correlation between the two and the elimination of possible lurking variables. Among the variables targeted are education, nutrition, ethnic differences, and multiple takings of the tests measuring IQ.  That leaves the environment as the only obvious variable, and Johnson continues to reduce the list. He rules out the migration to urban environments as a factor, and refutes the claim that already visually intelligent people constitute the majority of gamers; showing that videogames may indeed be making people smarter. In conjunction with studies showing games improved visual and memory skills, the Sleeper Curve appears to be to most influential factor contributing to the Flynn Effect.
    The trend of increasing complexity in games is for the most part obvious. With consoles that can store more memory and have somewhat lifelike graphics, game designers can program so much more content into games. As the consoles become more advanced, so do the games to keep up with popular demand. In today’s market, any game like Pong or Galaga would ignored by the majority of gamers due to their simplicity. Just as Johnson mentions how television series must be made more complex to sustain multiple reruns in Everything Bad is Good for You, game designers must make videogames similarly (in complexity anyway) to entice gamers to buy the games.

The Colbert Report February 15, 2011 - LCD Soundsystem

    In the newest episode of his show, Stephen Colbert addresses a number of current issues, from former dictator Hosni Mubarak’s Valentine’s Day depression to how our nation’s security is threatened every day by “tiny terrorists”. All of this is done with a thorough coating of sarcasm, which only serves to make the arguments stronger. In case there any doubt, it is a fake news show comedy, although Colbert states whatever he says like he means it.
    This episode, like most other comedies, makes a number of references to previous episodes and current events without explanation. Just as Steven Johnson says, “The show gets funnier [...] because the creators refuse to supply flashing arrows to translate the gags for the uninitiated” (87). The small references do make the episode more hilarious, even if it is only three words. Besides the references to the previous episode from a week ago, this episode has the standard jokes making fun of other shows, which Johnson also examines.
    The Colbert Report: Special Report investigates whether small children such as toddlers should be tried as adults, and with the bold claim of policy that they indeed should, supports it with rock solid evidence. With several parents of young children interviewed, and even a lawyer in opposition to such a policy, there was little in favor of the toddlers. In the toddlers’ interviews, they incriminated themselves, revealing a darker side to a normally innocuous group. Proponents of the status quo argued that toddlers do not have the intelligence to understand what jail is, but in an interview, one toddler clearly explained that, “[J]ail is where bad people go”. Supporters also argued that toddlers could be taught instead of being sent to jail, such as by withholding chocolate milk priviledges. When asked for their response to a hypothetical scenario where they lit their neighbor’s cat on fire and chocolate milk was subsequently taken away, another toddler replied, “I would do it again”. This apalling response clearly demonstrated that all toddlers are “unapologetic sociopaths”, in the words of the Colbert Report: Special Report investigator. As such, our nation’s young cirminals should not be able to get away with their actions any longer.
    With the mock seriousness of a real news show, Colbert delivers humorous yet solid arguments on many current issues, and makes for a good show to watch.

Argument Critque

    In “MySpace and Sex Offenders: What’s the Problem?” Bob Sullivan seems to argue that MySpace has taken insufficient measures for dealing with sex offenders. The essay illustrates a dispute between MySpace officials and a number of attorneys general, which points out more than a few flaws in MySpace’s steps in dealing with the problem.
    In response to a report detailing the presence of sex offenders on Myspace, the social networking company started to work with Sentinel Tech Holding Corp. to identify the lurking criminals. When MySpace started deleting offenders’ profiles, it came under fire for not announcing that it was doing so, and then for not releasing the profiles’ data apparently due to a misunderstanding. Sullivan then continues to explain how most attorneys were more concerned with how fast MySpace was acting on the problem, to which officials at MySpace responded by pointing out the lack of a national sex offender registry. In the final paragraphs, Sullivan raises questions about the step’s effectiveness in keeping predators off MySpace and appears to call for more drastic measures.
    Although MySpace has taken some steps to keep sex offenders off the site and others have suggested other steps to be taken, I doubt that it would ever be possible to keep all predators out of MySpace. When all the users can be anonymous and lie about themselves, sex offenders prove a serious problem for any social networking site. While Sullivan claims that, “[T]he prescence of 7,000 registered offenders on [MySpace] -- and the time span required to remove them -- raises inevitable questions about MySpace’s ability to keep its neighborhood safe” (119), he fails to consider (possibly because Facebook did not exist yet) that all social networking sites, including Facebook, have the same problem. In spite of this, Facebook still has hundreds of millions of users, so the suggested alternative to keep people safe: a “mandatory age verification to keep kids off the site altogether” (119) seems ridiculous. Thus, these social networking sites can do little to protect users besides setting the initial settings to the highest privacy. The responsibility then falls on the parents who let children use the sites to educate them not to give personal information to total strangers and such.

Sullivan, Bob. “MySpace and Sex Offenders: What’s the Problem?” New York Times Magazine 4 April. 1999: 144. Rpt. in Elements of Argument: A Text and Reader. Annette T. Rottenberg and Donna Haisty Winchell. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009. 116-119. Print.

Advertisement Analysis

World Wildlife Fund Ad

         
          Unlike most advertisements, this one makes a claim of value rather than a claim of policy. It asks the reader not to buy "exotic animal souvenirs". The statement is general, but the reader can infer that it means live animals.
          The advertisement supports the statement with a picture of a traveler walking with a suitcase, leaving what appears to be a trail of blood. The advertisement suggests that the traveler is someone who did buy an "exotic animal souvenir", because the suitcase is leaving a trail of blood. The red streak across the floor attempts to startle the reader with the disregard for the animal or even animals. One question it tries to prompt might be 'Do I want to be like the traveler in the picture who bought the souvenir, leaving a bloody wake?'.
          The warrant is that one should not buy said souvenirs because doing so would be cruel and inhumane. If the reader accepts the warrant, they will most likely accept the claim, because nobody (I would hope so) would want to be cruel and inhumane.

A Mini-Essay about me

As you probably know by the title of the blog, my name is Cyrus. I enjoy wrestling, running fast for short periods of time, taking advanced classes, and playing the occasional video game. Most people would expect someone to wrestle because of their argumentative nature, but I am often reluctant to pick a fight or argue. I wrestle because I am extremely competitive, and this competitiveness also drove me to take classes at FGCU instead of at my high school.

For the times when I do argue, I would attribute it to my stubborness. I think I’m almost as stubborn as I am competitive. The extent of my stubborness can be seen in my attitude towards cold weather.

I used to live in Massachusetts, and this past week the area where I used to live received a little under two feet of snow. I remember riding my bike to school once the sidewalks were somewhat shoveled, and being able to see my breath on a regular basis. When I moved here, I vowed not to ‘adjust to the Florida weather’ or ever pretend that the winters in Florida were cold. I did this in part because a friend said he would laugh at me if he saw me up north again, because I wouldn't be able to handle the cold. Since then I have refused to wear a hoodie or jacket, or agree with someone saying that it’s cold outside. I still think that 40 or 50 degrees is perfect for running because it won’t be too hot or humid to breathe, and the cool temperature is like a breeze that is always there. Although I wore a hoodie while I was up north last year, that’s completely different. It was snowing and I was throwing snow at him with my bare hands while he was running away, so who's laughing now?

I would like to think I’m stubborn like this, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eMkth8FWno , but that I’m always right (especially the part at 3:00).