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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What did Mencken satirize in "Quid Est Veritas"?
(a) Aristocrats.
(b) Country doctors.
(c) Those who insisted Latin was not a dead language.
(d) Organized religion.

2. What did Mencken feel about "American thinking"?
(a) It is timid and superficial.
(b) It is cautious, yet optimistic.
(c) It is bold and visionary.
(d) It is full of awesome promise.

3. Which was NOT a source of terrible smell in the Baltimore of the 1880s, according to Mencken?
(a) The glue factory.
(b) Wilkins Hair Factory.
(c) The St. Helen's insane asylum.
(d) The Back Basin.

4. What was the "last straw" that forced Mencken to quit the organization in #16?
(a) The fact that the running track was rectangular.
(b) An evangelical teen in the reading room.
(c) A painful accident with the horizontal bar.
(d) The relentless shouting of his gym teacher.

5. What do saints have in common with scientists?
(a) Both manipulate public opinion to advance their own position.
(b) Both unselfishly serve mankind.
(c) Both simply seek the truth.
(d) Both corrupt the truth to suit their best interests.

Short Answer Questions

1. What quotation did Mencken borrow from Theodore Dreiser in "Cavia Cobaya"?

2. According to the editor, why were the 1930s Mencken's "downfall"?

3. How did Gene the magistrate handle an overzealous Methodist clergyman?

4. In "The National Letters," what was the cause of all the "diseases" which afflict America?

5. How was Theodore Dreiser like Joseph Conrad, according to Mencken?

(see the answer key)

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