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Completion requirements

Read this section, which will give you some tips on how to spot an argument. While the premise and conclusion indicators are not guarantees of an argument, they can assist you in identifying an argument.

Complete Exercise 2, distinguishing arguments from non-arguments and identifying the conclusion of argument sentences. Despite the name, the conclusion often precedes the premises when we present arguments in ordinary language. When you finish the exercise, check your answers against the answer key.

Exercise

Which of the following are arguments? If it is an argument, identify the conclusion of the argument.

  1. The woman in the hat is not a witch since witches have long noses and she doesn't have a long nose.
  2. I have been wrangling cattle since before you were old enough to tie your own shoes.
  3. Albert is angry with me so he probably won't be willing to help me wash the dishes.
  4. First I washed the dishes and then I dried them.
  5. If the road wasn't icy, the car wouldn't have slid off the turn.
  6. Albert isn't a fireman and he isn't a fisherman either.
  7. Are you seeing that rhinoceros over there? It is huge!
  8. 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.
  9. Bob showed me a graph with the rising obesity rates and I was very surprised to see how much they've risen.
  10. Albert isn't a fireman because Albert is a Greyhound, which is a kind of dog, and dogs can't be firemen.
  11. Charlie and Violet are dogs and since dogs don't sweat, it is obvious that Charlie and Violet don't sweat.
  12.  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".
  13. What Bob told you is not the real reason that he missed his plane to Denver.
  14. Samsung stole some of Apple's patents for their smartphones, so Apple stole some of Samsung's patents back in retaliation.
  15. No one who has ever gotten frostbite while climbing K2 has survived to tell about it, therefore no one ever will.