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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 19, Science, Chapter 20, Quackery.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Mencken say about the nature of scientific hypotheses?
(a) He believes they should be lesser in number, and less fanciful.
(b) We need more of them, and they are valuable.
(c) Hypotheses are almost always wrong, as men are poor at guesswork.
(d) He is highly skeptical of their value.

2. Mencken sees that too often any discussion of suicide is rooted in what incorrect notion?
(a) The family would suffer in a suicide.
(b) Death is painless.
(c) Killing oneself is an expensive proposition.
(d) Death is painful.

3. What kind of people are most often forgotten by historical records, per Chapter 12?
(a) Respectful and intelligent men.
(b) Courageous women.
(c) Great warriors.
(d) The commoners.

4. What is the chief problem with political theorists?
(a) They attempt to dignify the political order of their day.
(b) They hate politics in general.
(c) They are too antagonistic to the current political system.
(d) They have little sense of history.

5. For Mencken, what is the nature of the range of the central psychological spectrum upon which all humans reside?
(a) From calm to paranoid.
(b) From cold to romantic.
(c) From slave mentality to free mentality.
(d) From introvert to extrovert.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why does Mencken admire John D. Rockefeller?

2. How does Mencken describe Oliver Wendell Holmes?

3. Which Southern state does Mencken particularly mourn in his obituary on the American South?

4. Why is Mencken unable to embrace democratic political theory, as he himself states it in Chapter 9?

5. What effect has intermarriage had on the American South?

(see the answer key)

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