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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Which is one of the stated reasons the editor put the volume together?
(a) To expose the corrupt policies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
(b) To introduce the works of H. L. Mencken to a new generation.
(c) To sell books for profit.
(d) To fight charges that Mencken was racist.

2. What was the subject of the first Mencken-written article that was ever published?
(a) A high-society party.
(b) A horse robbery.
(c) The gold standard.
(d) Political discontent in Europe.

3. Which was NOT a source of loud noise in the Baltimore of the 1880s, according to Mencken?
(a) Children singing and yelling in the streets.
(b) Penny candy vendors hawking their candy.
(c) Barking dogs.
(d) Iron tires hitting hard cobblestone streets.

4. According to "Quid Est Veritas?," what kind of religion professes to know God exactly and completely?
(a) American religions.
(b) Primitive religions.
(c) Perfect religions.
(d) Admirable religions.

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

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

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

8. What criticism did Dr. William Bayard Hale have for Woodrow Wilson?
(a) As an orator, Wilson was dull, and focuses too much on foreign policy.
(b) His rhetoric was lofty, but ultimately empty of substance.
(c) Wilson had the gall to pardon Eugene Debs.
(d) Wilson was more interested in tea parties and social functions than policy discussions.

9. In "The National Letters," what was the cause of all the "diseases" which afflict America?
(a) The lack of a stable aristocracy.
(b) The presumption of guilt, rather than innocence, in legal matters.
(c) Organized religion.
(d) The lack of a proper diet.

10. Which war was General John Pershing most famously involved in?
(a) The Civil War.
(b) World War II.
(c) The War of the Roses.
(d) World War I.

11. What was "The Art Eternal" according to Mencken?
(a) Prostitution.
(b) Lying.
(c) Literature.
(d) Portrait painting.

12. According to Mencken, how did members of the lower class respond to Wilson?
(a) They "clapped like fools" at a recent speech.
(b) They threw rotten vegetables at him at the convention.
(c) They responded to his lower class domestic policies.
(d) They were attracted to his lofty rhetoric.

13. Mencken provided what colorful phrase to describe a woman's body?
(a) An hourglass of horrors.
(b) A slap-happy seal.
(c) A drunken dollar-mark.
(d) A star-spangled mess.

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

15. What criticism did Mencken have for the effect of the Emancipation Proclamation?
(a) It freed slaves all at once, when it should have done it in a gradual way.
(b) It freed all slaves, when to preserve peace it should have freed only some.
(c) It directly led to the Battle of Shiloh.
(d) It only freed specific slaves, and not all slaves.

Short Answer Questions

1. In "Pater Patriae," which was NOT one of the reasons Mencken admired George Washington?

2. In "The Baltimore of the Eighties," why does Mencken's mother lament about a trip to the market?

3. What is a man's usual response to beauty?

4. Why do "handsome men" deserve suspicion?

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

(see the answer keys)

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