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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through 15-18.

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. According to "The Skeptic," what do women always bear?
(a) The burden of caring for families.
(b) The strength of their religious convictions.
(c) A healthy mistrust of their husbands.
(d) A strong sense of household finances.

3. According to Mencken, what kind of books did Theodore Dreiser produce?
(a) Breezy, summer-day reading.
(b) Wheezing, moralizing diatribes.
(c) Weighty, substantial tomes that one must concentrate on for a long time.
(d) Books more important as museum pieces than texts that should be read.

4. Which historical figure did Mencken ridicule by stating he was known as a "plaster saint"?
(a) George Washington.
(b) Napoleon Bonaparte.
(c) Abraham Lincoln.
(d) Theodore Dreiser.

5. What did Mencken think about monogamy, as revealed in "Cavia Cobaya"?
(a) Monogamy was the laughable product of democracy.
(b) Functionally, monogamy was the same as polygamy, because everyone cheats.
(c) Great men aspired to and achieved it.
(d) Monogamy stifled the natural urgings of a man.

Short Answer Questions

1. What did Mencken feel about "American thinking"?

2. What does Mencken state about the literary influence(s) of Theodore Dreiser?

3. Which was described as Mencken's earliest memory?

4. What does Mencken call a man who resists the charms of women?

5. What did Gene the magistrate do with respect to an old man in his court accused of wife beating?

(see the answer key)

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