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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What happened when Mencken sent a junior reporter to get him liquor during the Republican National Convention?
(a) The convention organizers caught Mencken and toss him out.
(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 reporter stole liquor from an aristocrat's secret stash.

2. Complete the following aphorism found in "Sententiae": "Democracy is..."
(a) "...the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."
(b) "...the weapon waved by the fairer sex."
(c) "...the application of love to money. Everybody's love."
(d) "...the Declaration of Independence after a trip to the dentist for a full root canal."

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

4. Who was Mencken referring to with the title, "A Good Man in a Bad Trade"?
(a) Grover Cleveland.
(b) Woodrow Wilson.
(c) Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
(d) A chiropractor.

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

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

7. Which of the following was NOT an attribute of an artist, as Mencken describes in "The Artist"?
(a) The artist is patriotic.
(b) The artist is more sensitive to his environment than normal people.
(c) The artist turns against his country and countrymen.
(d) The artist is more easily wounded.

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

9. What might Mencken say was Grover Cleveland's defining trait?
(a) Political acumen.
(b) A lust for life.
(c) Stubbornness.
(d) Intelligence.

10. Why did Mencken curse those who translated the Bible into English?
(a) They made the prose overly flowery and beautiful.
(b) They made a host of grammatical errors.
(c) They misinterpreted the principles of Jesus Christ.
(d) They made many factual errors.

11. In "Valentino," what did the press find in a men's bathroom that caused them to mock Valentino and his "Latin Lover" image?
(a) Pink talcum-powder.
(b) Underwear with a hole in it.
(c) A bar of lavender-scented soap-on-a-rope.
(d) Women's perfume.

12. Which of the following is a trait of the Anglo-Saxon race, per "The Anglo-Saxon"?
(a) Intelligence.
(b) Bravery.
(c) Weak will.
(d) Cultural superiority.

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

14. What was the source of Oliver Wendell Holmes' allure?
(a) His personal charisma and sometimes outrageous court antics.
(b) His ability to bribe officials at every level of government.
(c) His ability to stick to the facts and write sound legal opinions.
(d) His eloquent, epigrammatic writing style.

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. What did Mencken conclude in his examination of rulings in "Mr. Justice Holmes"?

2. Who was Mencken with at a Bach concert in Pennsylvania when he decided to get some liquor?

3. According to "Exeunt Omnes," Mencken was disappointed with the amount of books dedicated to which subject?

4. What aspect of death did Mencken find most interesting?

5. What did Mencken attribute to the fall of the "good man" in "A Good Man Gone Wrong"?

(see the answer keys)

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