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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How had Wallace behaved in "The Wallace Paranoia"?
(a) He had managed difficult times with great elegance.
(b) He was convinced there are Communist space aliens.
(c) He had been a bumbler and an "ass."
(d) He was flirting with "most every thing in a dress."

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

3. Which of the following did NOT happen during "The Hills of Zion"?
(a) The preacher began to speak in tongues.
(b) A young woman went into convulsions.
(c) A preacher appeared to strangle a woman to death before he miraculously "cures" her.
(d) A woman warned against reading books.

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

5. What was the flaw of FDR's opponent in the Democratic National Convention of 1932?
(a) He was too old, and he looked like a mummy next to FDR.
(b) He was blinded by his hatred for FDR.
(c) He was a complete political rookie.
(d) He was ruined by a scandal involving adultery.

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

7. How did Mencken describe the music of Chopin?
(a) "Genesis I, I"
(b) "Two embalmers at work upon a minor poet."
(c) A dozen wind chimes in a hurricane."
(d) "Silver macaroni, exquisitely tangled."

8. Why did Mencken call democracy a "self-limiting disease"?
(a) Democracy does damage, but the damage it can do is limited.
(b) Democracy achieves equality, and once equality is achieved, democracy has nothing to accomplish.
(c) Democracy is able to place limits on the power of politicians.
(d) Members of the Democratic Party inflict damage on themselves through numerous scandals.

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

10. Which of the following was NOT a name applied to William Jennings Bryan by Mencken?
(a) Charlatan.
(b) Mountebank.
(c) Yellow-bellied sapsucker.
(d) Fly-catcher.

11. According to "Exeunt Omnes," Mencken was disappointed with the amount of books dedicated to which subject?
(a) Adultery.
(b) Death.
(c) Taxes.
(d) Democracy.

12. What memorable simile did Mencken use for Grover Cleveland?
(a) Cleveland was like a crocodile waiting to snap his jaws around the American public.
(b) Cleveland was like a newborn babe gazing at the stars for the first time.
(c) Cleveland was like a fragile butterfly with wings of dynamite.
(d) Cleveland was like a steel ship loaded with monoliths of granite.

13. What would best describe how Mencken felt about stage acting?
(a) It stabs at the soul with genuine feeling.
(b) Like portrait painting, stage acting provides a window into the truth.
(c) It is completely unworthy of the price of admission.
(d) It gladdens the heart with falsity.

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

15. According to Mencken, how might Calvin Coolidge had handled the Great Depression?
(a) By sleeping through it.
(b) By taking a more active role than FDR ever had.
(c) By nationalizing many sectors of the economy.
(d) By cowering under his desk.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which of the following is NOT something that exists as a result of the Anglo-Saxon race, according to Mencken?

2. Who was Mencken referring to with the title, "A Good Man in a Bad Trade"?

3. Who were the two attorneys in the Scopes monkey trial?

4. What was the subject of "A Good Man Gone Wrong"?

5. What problem did Mencken have with Justice Holmes' final court case?

(see the answer keys)

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