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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. Per Chapter 2, what kind of person has Mencken never met?
(a) A metaphysician who was intellectually curious.
(b) A moral man that was honorable.
(c) An altruist who actually did good for anybody.
(d) A quack with a conscience.

2. What kind of promises do politicians make?
(a) Ones they can fulfill.
(b) Ones they have polled voters about.
(c) Ones they cannot deliver.
(d) Ones they have no intention of fulfilling.

3. Before democracy came to be, what did people believe this system of government to be?
(a) It was such a foreign concept, no one could really imagine it.
(b) A wretched form of government that should not come to pass.
(c) They believed democracy was just another form of dictatorship.
(d) A heavenly form of government.

4. What is Mencken's opinion of romantic love?
(a) It benefits men rather than women.
(b) Men must only marry for romantic love, and not for other considerations.
(c) It is a dangerous farce.
(d) It is a great and noble thing.

5. How does Mencken feel about the overall capacity for virtue in the human race?
(a) Very few men are virtuous.
(b) Most people are virtuous, but a few people spoil it for everyone.
(c) Everyone is virtuous, it's just a matter of uncovering it.
(d) Virtue is a nonsense term, because everything is relative.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is Mencken's opinion of the American South?

2. What does the "metaphysical" type of person inevitably do?

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

4. What aspect of Lincoln's historical persona does Mencken doubt, or at least question?

5. Mencken compares Theodore Roosevelt's political ideas to which other politician's?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is Mencken's view of punishment for crime? What is the function of punishment?

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

3. What is Mencken's view of romantic love?

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

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

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

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

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

9. Summarize Mencken's appraisal of Abraham Lincoln.

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

(see the answer keys)

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