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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. What is Man's one unique characteristic, per Chapter 1?

3. In Chapter 7, Mencken notes that there are too few books written about what subject?

4. What is Mencken's opinion of original Christians?

5. How did morality come to be, according to Mencken?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. What is the origin of morality according to Mencken?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Describe in-depth Mencken's views of the following people (and specific works, if applicable):

1) Mark Twain

2) William Dean Howells

3) Edgar Allan Poe

4) Ralph Waldo Emerson

5) Walt Whitman

6) Ambrose Bierce

Essay Topic 2

Describe in-depth Mencken's views of the following people (and specific works, if applicable):

1) Ludwig van Beethoven

2) Richard Strauss

3) Johann Strauss

4) Johannes Brahms

5) Richard Wagner

6) Franz Schubert

Essay Topic 3

Summarize Chapter 1 which discusses the nature of man.

a) What is the nature of man to Mencken? What is Man guided by?

b) What is the nature of the relationship between God and Man?

c) What is the nature of the relationship between Man and animal?

d) What part does "delusion" play in man's relationship to the universe?

(see the answer keys)

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