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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through 45-49.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What might Mencken say about a writer's sense of beauty?
(a) The writer has an average sense of beauty.
(b) Beauty is irrelevant to the writer, who must deal with cold, hard facts.
(c) The writer has a very poor sense of beauty.
(d) The writer has a profound sense of beauty.

2. Why did Mencken call democracy a "self-limiting disease"?
(a) Democracy does damage, but the damage it can do is limited.
(b) Democracy is able to place limits on the power of politicians.
(c) Members of the Democratic Party inflict damage on themselves through numerous scandals.
(d) Democracy achieves equality, and once equality is achieved, democracy has nothing to accomplish.

3. How did Mencken describe the music of Puccini?
(a) "A dozen wind chimes in a hurricane."
(b) "Silver macaroni, exquisitely tangled."
(c) "Two embalmers at work upon a minor poet."
(d) "Two intertwined dogs yapping at each other."

4. What was Mencken's nickname for Chesapeake Bay?
(a) Crab central.
(b) The protein factory.
(c) Home of the yummy lobsters.
(d) The big blue.

5. Who presided over the Republican Convention of 1920?
(a) Grover Garfield.
(b) Franklin Pierce.
(c) Henry Cabot Lodge.
(d) William Jennings Bryan.

Short Answer Questions

1. What was the subject of "A Good Man Gone Wrong"?

2. What criticism did Mencken have for a book filled with sayings and writings about death?

3. According to Mencken, how did members of the lower class respond to Wilson?

4. What stance can Mencken be said to have taken in "Star-Spangled Man"?

5. What was the "last straw" that forced Mencken to quit the organization in #16?

(see the answer key)

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