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

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

3. What is Mencken's opinion of original Christians?
(a) The historical record is so poor that Mencken cannot form an opinion.
(b) They were patriots, akin to the Founding Fathers.
(c) They were "men's men" and should be looked upon as examples.
(d) They were vulgar cads without imagination.

4. What is Mencken's belief about crime?
(a) Crime is primarily a social invention.
(b) Crime is primarily a product of capitalist society.
(c) Crime is impossible in aristocratic circles.
(d) Crime is primarily a legal invention.

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

Short Answer Questions

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

2. How intelligent are women according to Mencken?

3. What is the consequence of someone believing in God, according to Mencken in Chapter 1?

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

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

Short Essay Questions

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

2. Per Chapter 2, describe Mencken's summation of the following types of people: the romantic, the believer, the metaphysician, and the altruist.

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

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

5. Name four historic events Mencken mentions in Chapter 12, and his opinion of them.

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

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

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

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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