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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What was unique to the American psyche according to Mencken in "Libido for the Ugly"?
(a) A tendency to be rude and loud during movie screenings.
(b) An obsession with staying thin.
(c) A queer fascination with ugliness.
(d) Sexual arousal when viewing art objects.

2. According to "The New Architecture," when will Man have "built his own prison"?
(a) When Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is not heralded as a champion of new design.
(b) When people build houses using the style of English Eighteenth Century.
(c) When he replaces Gothic architecture with Modernist architecture.
(d) When new architecture is replaced by neoclassical architecture.

3. What theoretical scenario did Mencken pose in "The Calamity of Appomattox"?
(a) Mencken imagines if the Civil War had never taken place, and the South had slaves to this day.
(b) Mencken imagines if Europe had never recovered from World War I, and was a smoldering ruin.
(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.

4. What did Mencken call for in "Mencken's Last Stand"?
(a) For the world to leave him alone.
(b) A more intelligent approach to chiropractic.
(c) An end to segregation.
(d) For president Harry S. Truman to resign.

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

6. Who was FDR's chief opponent in the Democratic Convention of 1932?
(a) Al Smith.
(b) Woodrow Wilson.
(c) Henry Cabot Lodge.
(d) William Randolph Hearst.

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

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

9. What was the subject of the Scopes monkey trial?
(a) The assault of a zoo heckler by a gorilla.
(b) The kidnapping of a chimpanzee.
(c) The teaching of evolution.
(d) A treasonous plot to help a Central American country.

10. What did Mencken mean by the term "Ku Kluxry"?
(a) Dressing in silly clothes.
(b) Cultural superiority.
(c) Bedsheets.
(d) Racism.

11. What was the subject of "The Noble Experiment"?
(a) A scientific breakthrough Mencken reported on.
(b) Voting during World War I.
(c) The Cuban revolution.
(d) Drinking during Prohibition.

12. How was Mencken able to get a taxi driver to drive him to a speakeasy in Pennsylvania?
(a) He agreed to write an article about the driver.
(b) He showed the driver the musical score from a Bach concert.
(c) He gave the driver a ten dollar bill.
(d) He threatened the driver with jail time.

13. 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 pathetic and ridiculous, which is false.
(c) They are obsessed with death in battle, when death usually happens in the bathtub.
(d) They show death to be dramatic and heroic, which is false.

14. How did Mencken describe the music of Bach?
(a) "The Deaf leading the Equally-Deaf."
(b) "Heaven upon a creamy macaroon."
(c) "Genesis I, I"
(d) "Silver macaroni, exquisitely tangled."

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

Short Answer Questions

1. In "Travail," how did the boys going to school in the morning seem to Mencken?

2. In "The Hills of Zion," why did a woman warn against the reading of books?

3. What was Roosevelt's strategy at the Democratic National Convention of 1932?

4. What was the general atmosphere of the Democratic National Convention of 1932, as reported by Mencken?

5. According to Mencken, how might Calvin Coolidge had handled the Great Depression?

(see the answer keys)

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