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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What theoretical scenario did Mencken pose in "The Calamity of Appomattox"?
(a) Mencken imagines if Europe had never recovered from World War I, and was a smoldering ruin.
(b) Mencken imagines if the Civil War had never taken place, and the South had slaves to this day.
(c) Mencken imagines if the North had surrendered in the Civil War instead of the South.
(d) Mencken imagines a world in which the deli counter always got his sandwich order right.

2. What criticism did Mencken have for a book filled with sayings and writings about death?
(a) The book failed to include the work of Theodore Dreiser.
(b) The book had three quotations attributed to the contemptible Oliver Wendell Holmes.
(c) The book had nothing from the ancient Greeks.
(d) The book failed to mention music at all.

3. What was Mencken's general opinion of religion at the end of "Holy Writ"?
(a) Religion is valuable, but flawed.
(b) Religion is a great good, and responsible for much of what is good in civilization.
(c) Religion is a pretty silly business.
(d) Religion is evil, and should be outlawed.

4. What event did Mencken cover in "The Wallace Paranoia"?
(a) The Progressive Party convention.
(b) A socialite's ball.
(c) The New York World's Fair.
(d) The marriage of a governor.

5. What was Mencken's epitaph?
(a) Wink your eye at some homely girl.
(b) This gravestone may alternately be used as a paperweight.
(c) Give your mother a kiss, for me.
(d) Remember what I said, not what I did.

6. How would Mencken respond to the notion that William Jennings Bryan was an earnest man?
(a) He was not earnest; he was inherently two-faced.
(b) He was earnest to the public, but in private he was a swindler and schemer.
(c) Earnest or no, he did the right thing in the Scopes monkey trial.
(d) He might have been earnest, but that was about his only admirable quality.

7. Where did the Scopes monkey trial take place?
(a) Chicago, Illinois.
(b) St. Louis, Missouri.
(c) Baltimore, Maryland.
(d) Dayton, Tennessee.

8. What did Mencken attribute to the fall of the "good man" in "A Good Man Gone Wrong"?
(a) A nagging housewife.
(b) A runaway automobile.
(c) A Presbyterian upbringing.
(d) An "unspeakable force in the universe."

9. What is wrong, in Mencken's opinion, with most artists' depictions of death?
(a) They never show women dying, only men.
(b) They show death to be dramatic and heroic, which is false.
(c) They show death to be pathetic and ridiculous, which is false.
(d) They are obsessed with death in battle, when death usually happens in the bathtub.

10. What was the general atmosphere of the Democratic National Convention of 1932, as reported by Mencken?
(a) A complete circus.
(b) Like Mafia men meeting at a restaurant, as the politicians are all corrupt.
(c) Quiet, like a gentlemen's club.
(d) Stuffy and mannered.

11. In "The Hills of Zion," why did a woman warn against the reading of books?
(a) She believed that books are full of snakes and corn cobs.
(b) Reading would require too much effort.
(c) Only a congregation's preacher should take on the responsibility of reading.
(d) She asked, What knowledge could exist outside of the Bible?

12. What was the nature of the analogy Mencken uses involving Oliver Wendell Holmes, a hammer, and a feather?
(a) Holmes touched the sky with feathers, and then built a castle in the sky with a hammer.
(b) Holmes tickled with feathers, but never punished with a hammer.
(c) Holmes stuffed a mattress with feathers, but then beat the mattress flat with a hammer.
(d) Holmes wrote with a feather (quill), but legislated with a hammer.

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

14. What was Calvin Coolidge's chief trait, according to Mencken?
(a) "A hide as tough as a rhinoceros, and a horn to match."
(b) "A great appetite for jams and jellies."
(c) "Self-induced narcolepsy."
(d) "A terrific ability to arrive at the wrong place, but at the right time."

15. Why was early Christianity superior to modern Christianity, per "Holy Writ"?
(a) Services took place in cold places, to ensure better concentration.
(b) Early Christianity had a less strict interpretation of Biblical stories.
(c) It featured a lot less sermonizing.
(d) It featured more moral instructions.

Short Answer Questions

1. Per "Mr. Justice Holmes," which of the following might Mencken say about the legislature as a state organization?

2. How had Wallace behaved in "The Wallace Paranoia"?

3. Who did Mencken NOT count among the "crackpots" present in "The Wallace Paranoia"?

4. Which of the following was NOT a name applied to William Jennings Bryan by Mencken?

5. Which was one of the architectural styles Mencken mentioned as part of the "new architecture"?

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