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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapter 23, Souvenirs of a Journalist, Chapter 24, Criticism.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In the boxing match Mencken reports on in Chapter 23, why do most want the favorite boxer to lose?
(a) He had evaded service in World War I.
(b) He was drunk and hollering at the crowd.
(c) He had beaten his wife up the night before.
(d) He had been accused of taking steroids.

2. What quality makes for the best literary critic, according to Chapter 24?
(a) Advancing a personal agenda or doctrine.
(b) The goal to create a work of art.
(c) Adhering to a specific philosophical system.
(d) Accuracy and a need to refute error.

3. Which Southern state does Mencken particularly mourn in his obituary on the American South?
(a) Texas.
(b) Georgia.
(c) Virginia.
(d) Louisiana.

4. What "call" does Mencken make to America's poets in Chapter 7?
(a) He wishes them to write a funeral service for the damned.
(b) He wishes them to speak upon the beauty of the female figure.
(c) He wishes them to rewrite Ode to a Grecian Urn.
(d) He wishes them to burn all of their poems and drown themselves.

5. What word might Mencken use to characterize Mary Baker G. Eddy?
(a) Saint.
(b) Necessary.
(c) Fraud.
(d) Intellectual.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who was the attorney on the side of the prosecution in the Scopes Monkey Trial?

2. What is Man's one unique characteristic, per Chapter 1?

3. What is the second-worst job in the world, according to Chapter 17?

4. What period in history does Mencken refer to as "New Deal No. 1"?

5. What does Mencken believe about the universality of morality?

(see the answer key)

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