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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. What do most women think of their husbands according to Mencken?
(a) Women are indifferent to their husbands and use them as mere tools.
(b) Women pity their husbands and consider them asses.
(c) Women fear and loathe their husbands.
(d) Women love and respect their husbands.

2. How does Mencken characterize a woman's level of civility?
(a) Women are relatively uncivilized.
(b) Women are much more civilized than men.
(c) Women have created their own civilization quite distinct from men.
(d) Women do not submit to civilization and must be coerced.

3. What is Mencken's opinion of the belief that man has a soul, according to Chapter 1?
(a) The notion of a soul has failed to result in more people acting like God.
(b) The notion of a soul is humanity's one bright spot.
(c) The notion of a soul has led to unprecedented successes in philosophy and elsewhere.
(d) The notion of a soul is simple, but still very relevant today.

4. What kind of men does a democracy produce?
(a) Energetic men with too much time on their hands.
(b) Depressing men full of nostalgia.
(c) Stupid men who can barely master the multiplication tables.
(d) Noble, confident men who do not envy others.

5. What period in history does Mencken refer to as "New Deal No. 1"?
(a) France in the 1840s.
(b) North Africa in the 1900s.
(c) Britain in the 1910s.
(d) America in the 1770s.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the "average man's" opinion of government?

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

3. Which is NOT one of the features Mencken imagines for the Confederacy, had it survived the Civil War?

4. What aspect of President Grant does Mencken admire?

5. What is Mencken's opinion about the variety of political systems?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

4. Describe Mencken's conception of the Anglo-Saxon American. What are this person's flaws?

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

6. What is the average person's opinion of government, according to Mencken?

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

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

9. What does Mencken see as a popular misconception about death? What is his opinion of suicide?

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

(see the answer keys)

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