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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 is Mencken's view of chiropractors?
(a) He must study the subject further to render an opinion.
(b) He depends on them for his numerous back problems.
(c) They are quack doctors.
(d) They are the newest members of a respected doctor aristocracy.

2. In the boxing match Mencken reports on in Chapter 23, why do most want the favorite boxer to lose?
(a) He had evaded service in World War I.
(b) He was drunk and hollering at the crowd.
(c) He had beaten his wife up the night before.
(d) He had been accused of taking steroids.

3. Mencken sees authors as divided into which two classes?
(a) Dramatic and Comedic.
(b) English and Continental.
(c) Sly and Overt.
(d) American and Foreign.

4. How do bad artists hide their shortcomings?
(a) By creating overblown interpretations of their art.
(b) Bad artists are unable to hide their shortcomings; they are always found out.
(c) By coming up with new formulas for art.
(d) By showing their art to only a select, friendly few.

5. What is NOT one of the qualities of being a teacher according to Mencken?
(a) Being able to breeze through lessons and cut corners.
(b) Being underpaid.
(c) Wearing oneself out to achieve the impossible.
(d) Having no respect.

Short Answer Questions

1. How do rich people "buy public esteem" according to Mencken?

2. Mencken begins Chapter 25 with a philosophical discussion of what phenomenon?

3. What two types of rich people does Mencken see in America?

4. A man's taste in poetry is a reflection of what?

5. What point does Mencken make by bringing up an 84-year-old man he knew in Chapter 21?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is Mencken's opinion of the music of Johann Strauss? Why wasn't Strauss' music more well-received in America?

2. What opinion does Mencken render about the Black Plague that decimated Europe in the Middle Ages?

3. What memorable position does Mencken take on opera?

4. Summarize Mencken's account of a Jack Dempsey boxing match.

5. What does Mencken believe about chiropractors?

6. How does Mencken compare socialism to capitalism? Include the Bolshevik Revolution in your response.

7. In "Utopian Flights," how does Mencken suggest that legislators be chosen? What benefits would this method have, in his opinion?

8. Summarize Mencken's account of the Scopes Monkey Trial and his impression of the town of Dayton, Tennessee.

9. What is Mencken's opinion of Prohibition? What was its effect on society?

10. What is Mencken's opinion of the teaching profession? How does he compare and contrast teaching styles of his schoolboy days to today?

(see the answer keys)

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