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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 device does Mencken call a "boon to bores"?

2. What is NOT one of the qualities of being a teacher according to Mencken?

3. Who wrote the Viennese Waltz?

4. What point does Mencken make in his discussion of Darwinian evolution?

5. How does Mencken react to a religious ceremony inside a basilica, as he recounts in Chapter 15?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is Mencken's belief about American millionaires?

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

3. Why does Mencken make mention of Sister Aimee? Who was Sister Aimee, and what was Mencken's opinion of her?

4. What is Mencken's own philosophy of psychology? What does he feel forms the basis of human psychology?

5. Summarize Mencken's view of Ludwig van Beethoven.

6. Why does Mencken criticize the American Medical Association? What is his opinion of doctors as a professional class?

7. Describe the following under the category of what Mencken calls "'The Lesser Arts": a) oil painting, b) drama.

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

9. What does Mencken feel is the contemporary state of psychology? How does he feel about Freudianism?

10. What should poetry ideally be, according to Mencken? What makes for a good poem? And how does taste in poetry reflect upon a person's qualities?

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

Chapter 22 is dedicated to "Utopian Flights."

1) What is a "Utopian Flight" as Mencken has described it? How does the notion of the Utopian flight relate to Mencken's view of human nature? How does the notion relate to Mencken's view of government?

2) Summarize Mencken's suggestion for choosing legislators. Discuss the mechanics of this system, and its supposed benefits.

3) Summarize Mencken's suggestion for "special laws" to be applied to government officials. Discuss the mechanics of this system, and its supposed benefits.

Essay Topic 3

Describe in-depth Mencken's views of the following people:

1) William Jennings Bryan

2) Woodrow Wilson

3) Warren G. Harding

4) Thorstein Veblen

5) Calvin Coolidge

6) Oliver Wendell Holmes

(see the answer keys)

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