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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. Why does Mencken admire John D. Rockefeller?
(a) For his business prowess.
(b) For his political acumen.
(c) For his larger-than-life lifestyle.
(d) For his research foundations.

2. What is the proper function of punishment for crimes?
(a) To create a sense of false dignity in society.
(b) As a mere incentivizing device.
(c) As a deterrent, but also more.
(d) As a deterrent only.

3. What is Mencken's opinion of the American South?
(a) He thinks highly of it because of its emphasis on grassroots values.
(b) He loathes it and believes it to be a crude and uncultured place.
(c) He believes that southerners are intellectually superior to northerners, but rarely show it.
(d) He thinks it is a spiritually enlightened place.

4. What is Mencken's assessment of Abraham Lincoln?
(a) He was an out-and-out racist.
(b) He was a practical politician of great talent and rhetoric.
(c) He was a hard-living chauvinist dinosaur.
(d) He was a bumbler and not fit for office.

5. Why is Mencken unable to embrace democratic political theory, as he himself states it in Chapter 9?
(a) He is incapable of being envious of others.
(b) He is simply too cultured and sophisticated.
(c) He is not poor, and so cannot see democracy's benefits.
(d) He is morally superior to democrats.

Short Answer Questions

1. What kind of sense of right and wrong do children have?

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

3. What does the "believer" type of person inevitably do?

4. Why did England experience particular difficulties in World War I according to Mencken?

5. How intelligent are women according to Mencken?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

4. Describe Mencken's opinion of George Washington. Why does Mencken admire him? Why doesn't Mencken believe Washington would do well in a contemporary political climate?

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

6. What does Mencken believe about the nature of man and God? What is the consequence for believing in God? What about the soul?

7. Describe Mencken's contention that democracy is a "self-limiting disease." What does he mean by that? Is there any good aspects to democracy?

8. What effect did the Civil War have on the American South, and why was this conflict so disastrous to Mencken from a cultural standpoint?

9. Who is Professor Thorstein Veblen, and what is Mencken's opinion of him and his work?

10. Summarize Mencken's appraisal of William Jennings Bryan. How is Mencken's opinion related to the Scopes Monkey Trial?

(see the answer keys)

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