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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through 10-14.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. According to "The Incomparable Buzz-Saw," what is a woman's only power?
(a) The power to torture a man through love.
(b) The power over her children.
(c) The power of a house's pursestrings.
(d) The power to ruin a man's life with divorce.

2. What profession should the truth-teller NOT aspire to, according to Mencken?
(a) Owner of a large company.
(b) The President of the United States.
(c) A jewelry maker.
(d) A bartender.

3. How did Gene the magistrate handle an overzealous Methodist clergyman?
(a) Gene ruled that religion was essential to the functioning of a democracy.
(b) Gene ruled that the clergyman was within his rights to practice in the Jewish ghetto.
(c) Gene had policemen follow the clergyman wherever he went.
(d) Gene created trumped-up charges to render him no longer a problem.

4. What does Mencken make synonymous with democracy in "A Blind Spot"?
(a) Agnosticism.
(b) Hedonism.
(c) Totalitarianism.
(d) Puritanism.

5. According to the editor, why were the 1930s Mencken's "downfall"?
(a) The hardships in the country changed popular sentiment.
(b) Mencken's severe illness limited his output.
(c) President FDR waged a battle of personal attacks against Mencken.
(d) Mencken spent most of the decade in Europe.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why shouldn't men trust other men?

2. In "Gore in the Caribees," what was Mencken's perspective on the revolution in Cuba?

3. What organization did Mencken's father force him to join at age fourteen?

4. What did Mencken satirize in "Quid Est Veritas"?

5. What was the subject of the first Mencken-written article that was ever published?

(see the answer key)

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