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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How does Mencken describe President Coolidge?
(a) His life was marred by continual misfortune.
(b) He was reserved and agnostic.
(c) He was an orator of great skill and emotive power.
(d) He was a typical American.

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

3. What comparison does Mencken make between man and animal in Chapter 1?
(a) The faculties of animal and man precisely balance when taken as a whole.
(b) The only thing man cannot do that animal can is fly.
(c) Many animals have superior faculties to man.
(d) Man in every way has faculties that are superior to animals.

4. Who derives several advantages from marriage?
(a) Only the state.
(b) Men only.
(c) Men and women equally.
(d) Women only.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What group of people has been "overestimated" throughout the course of human history?

2. What is Mencken's opinion of original Christians?

3. Per Chapter 2, what kind of person has Mencken never met?

4. What does democracy ruin, according to Mencken?

5. Which is NOT one of the reasons Mencken praises George Washington?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the degree of women's "civility" according to Mencken? How does emotion factor in to civility?

2. What is Mencken's view of monogamy/marriage?

3. What is Mencken's opinion of government? What is the role of government? Is one system of government preferable to another?

4. What is democracy's fundamental flaw? What aspect of human nature motivates democracy?

5. In Chapter 1, how does Mencken's view of humanity coincide with that of the modern scientist?

6. Is morality necessary in Mencken's view? How many people are moral people? Is there a good and evil, or is that a human-created concept?

7. Discuss Mencken's history of democracy. Before it arrived, what did people think of democracy? How was it conceived? How did it evolve?

8. What does Mencken feel about the relationship between science and religion?

9. What is Mencken's opinion of the contemporary American South? What are its features? What rules the South?

10. In Chapter 1, what comparison does Mencken make between man and animal? Who is "superior"?

(see the answer keys)

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