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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Who started chiropractic, according to Mencken?
(a) Dr. William Bayle Howard.
(b) Andrew Still.
(c) William Jennings Bryan.
(d) Alistair Cooke.

2. What happened when Mencken sent a junior reporter to get him liquor during the Republican National Convention?
(a) The reporter stole liquor from an aristocrat's secret stash.
(b) The junior reporter was arrested and spends the night in jail.
(c) The reporter encountered drunken goons, and failed to get any liquor.
(d) The convention organizers caught Mencken and toss him out.

3. Why might the Anglo-Saxon race have entered into the Spanish-American war, according to Mencken?
(a) They were courageous and foolhardy.
(b) The war protected vital interests in the Caribbean.
(c) It was a war they were sure to win.
(d) They knew they could seize the Spanish crown.

4. What was NOT a feature of chiropractors, according to "Chiropractic"?
(a) They had a good deal of anatomical knowledge.
(b) They were retired baseball players or piano movers.
(c) They did no good, and may in fact cause harm.
(d) They were quacks.

5. What aspect of death did Mencken find most interesting?
(a) How so often people die not gloriously or with grace, but ridiculously.
(b) What the great poets have said about death.
(c) The physiological and chemical processes involved in death.
(d) How people are able to find God so quickly on their death bed.

6. Complete the following aphorism found in "Sententiae": "Adultery is..."
(a) "...the destruction of love, life, and money."
(b) "...the application of democracy to love."
(c) "...a willingness to get what's yours."
(d) "...like a marriage with a bad cold."

7. Which is the best style of architecture, according to Mencken?
(a) English Eighteenth Century.
(b) Futurism.
(c) Art Nouveau.
(d) Modernism.

8. What was Mencken's current opinion of the American South, as revealed in "The Calamity of Appomattox"?
(a) It was a culturally superior place.
(b) It was an economic powerhouse.
(c) It was a lightning-rod of controversy.
(d) It was a culturally inferior place.

9. According to Mencken, what if there had not been a Civil War in the United States?
(a) The South would have been devastated economically.
(b) The South would have gotten rid of slavery anyway.
(c) The South would be a desolate place full of "cow towns" with no culture.
(d) The South would have retained slavery as an institution.

10. What did Mencken conclude in his examination of rulings in "Mr. Justice Holmes"?
(a) Justice Holmes ruled too often for rabble-rousers, and not often enough for the aristocracy.
(b) Justice Holmes ruled too often in favor of the powers that be, rather than the people.
(c) Justice Holmes rendered fantastically bizarre rulings, and should be impeached.
(d) Mencken slyly suggests Holmes should tuck chickens under his arms because of his chicken-like cowardice.

11. Which of the following is NOT a trait of the writer, according to Mencken in "The Author at Work"?
(a) The writer is in it for the money.
(b) The writer is starved for attention.
(c) The writer is a social creature.
(d) The writer is a hypochondriac.

12. Who did Mencken NOT count among the "crackpots" present in "The Wallace Paranoia"?
(a) Communists.
(b) Career political operatives.
(c) Psychopaths.
(d) Bible-belt evangelists.

13. To what degree has "new architecture" impacted America?
(a) It has not had much of an impact.
(b) It has come to dominate America, much to Mencken's chagrin.
(c) It hasn't reached American shores yet, and Mencken pleads with Europe to let America "borrow" it.
(d) It has come to dominate America, much to Mencken's delight.

14. How do common folk read the Bible, according to Mencken in "Holy Writ"?
(a) They are fooled by its beautiful prose, and pay no attention to the ideas behind the words.
(b) They read it, but find nothing to relate to their personal experience.
(c) They don't read the Bible at all, and are illiterate fools.
(d) They find it hilarious, for some strange reason.

15. Who were the two attorneys in the Scopes monkey trial?
(a) Clarence Darrow and Henry Cabot Lodge.
(b) William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow.
(c) Theodore Dreiser and John Pershing.
(d) William Jennings Bryan and Andrew Still.

Short Answer Questions

1. What was "lamentable" about the North beating the South in the Civil War, according to Mencken?

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

3. How would Mencken respond to the notion that William Jennings Bryan was an earnest man?

4. In "The Wallace Paranoia," who was Mencken referring to with the phrase "raisins in the bread."

5. How did Mencken describe the music of Chopin?

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