View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. What city was featured in "The Libido for the Ugly"?
(a) Washington, D. C.
(b) Baltimore, Maryland.
(c) Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
(d) Dayton, Ohio.

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

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

5. What point did Mencken make when referring to the picture of a French soldier who was deformed with multiple amputations in war?
(a) The soldier made the noblest of sacrifices, and will be remembered forever.
(b) Mencken imagined that the soldier likely sought a glorious death in battle, but now has to live life in a pathetic state.
(c) Mencken thought it was terribly sad that the man will not be able to walk into heaven.
(d) The French were brave people, indeed.

6. Why did Valentino invite Mencken to dinner?
(a) To challenge him to a duel for libel.
(b) To advise him on whether or not to take an upcoming film role.
(c) To beg him to ask a young woman out on a date for him.
(d) To ask for advice about a fight with a New York newspaper.

7. 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) Earnest or no, he did the right thing in the Scopes monkey trial.
(c) He might have been earnest, but that was about his only admirable quality.
(d) He was earnest to the public, but in private he was a swindler and schemer.

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

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

10. What was the result of Mencken's attempt to trace the lineage of the Anglo-Saxon race?
(a) He traced it to a tribe in Western Africa.
(b) It was too complicated, and he gave up.
(c) Mencken claimed, sarcastically, that he himself represents the apex of the race.
(d) He pointed out that the race was never the same after a battle in 1066.

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

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

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

14. What was the function of the Bill of Rights, per "Mr. Justice Holmes"?
(a) To protect religion from devil worshippers.
(b) To ensure a pistol or shotgun is available in every household.
(c) To protect the aristocracy from the low classes.
(d) To protect Americans from the tyranny of the state.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What did Mencken mean by the term "Ku Kluxry"?

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

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

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

5. Which of the following did NOT happen during "The Hills of Zion"?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 871 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample