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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What quotation did Mencken borrow from Theodore Dreiser in "Cavia Cobaya"?
(a) Does the average strong, successful man confine himself to one woman?
(b) Does the temperate, invulnerable man ever give in to the sins of alcohol?
(c) Does a woman of considerable means ever want for a man of inconsiderable means?
(d) Does a man of moderate means never aspire to great wealth?

2. What human flaw does democracy depend upon, according to Mencken?
(a) Rage.
(b) Envy.
(c) Greed.
(d) Vanity.

3. Which decade, according to the author, was Mencken at his best?
(a) The 1910s.
(b) The 1930s.
(c) The 1940s.
(d) The 1920s.

4. According to "Quid Est Veritas?," what kind of religion professes to know God exactly and completely?
(a) American religions.
(b) Perfect religions.
(c) Primitive religions.
(d) Admirable religions.

5. What did Mencken think about monogamy, as revealed in "Cavia Cobaya"?
(a) Great men aspired to and achieved it.
(b) Functionally, monogamy was the same as polygamy, because everyone cheats.
(c) Monogamy was the laughable product of democracy.
(d) Monogamy stifled the natural urgings of a man.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Mencken make synonymous with democracy in "A Blind Spot"?

2. What famous speech did Ralph Waldo Emerson deliver in 1837?

3. What was the "last straw" that forced Mencken to quit the organization in #16?

4. In "The Good Man," what general statement did Mencken make about mankind?

5. What criticism did Mencken have for the effect of the Emancipation Proclamation?

Short Essay Questions

1. What was Mencken's remedy for curing the ills of modern religions?

2. Why was 1880s Baltimore such a loud town?

3. Why did Alistair Cooke feel that Mencken experienced a "downfall" in the 1930s?

4. What was the nature of Mencken's first-ever printed article?

5. What questions did Mencken raise about the contemporary understanding of Abraham Lincoln?

6. What circumstances drove Mencken away from attending the Y. M. C. A.?

7. According to Mencken, why would a Christian man not cheat on his wife, according to "The Libertine"?

8. Instead of military generals, who did Mencken wish to award medals to in "Star-Spangled Man"?

9. What is democracy's aim, in "A Blind Spot"? What is a crime in the eyes of democracy?

10. What was accomplished by Walt Whitman's "Democratic Vistas," according to Mencken?

(see the answer keys)

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