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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 one thing did Mencken feel was useful from the contributions of Sigmund Freud?
(a) The notion that lying stemmed from an unconscious place.
(b) The notion that people could be easily hypnotized.
(c) The notion that dreams could reveal aspects of our everyday lives.
(d) The notion that "mother issues" were deeply-seated.

2. What does Mencken make synonymous with democracy in "A Blind Spot"?
(a) Puritanism.
(b) Hedonism.
(c) Totalitarianism.
(d) Agnosticism.

3. What did Mencken feel about "American thinking"?
(a) It is timid and superficial.
(b) It is cautious, yet optimistic.
(c) It is bold and visionary.
(d) It is full of awesome promise.

4. Which is NOT one of the reasons winters were difficult in 1880s Baltimore?
(a) The cold was severe, and furnaces did not help much.
(b) Cellars could flood.
(c) Water pipes could burst.
(d) Snow caused many roofs to cave in.

5. According to Mencken, what kind of books did Theodore Dreiser produce?
(a) Wheezing, moralizing diatribes.
(b) Weighty, substantial tomes that one must concentrate on for a long time.
(c) Books more important as museum pieces than texts that should be read.
(d) Breezy, summer-day reading.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which man did Mencken dub the "Star-Spangled Man"?

2. What was Mencken's criticism for Lincoln's Gettysburg Address?

3. What is democracy's "aim," according to Mencken?

4. In which city did Mencken grow up?

5. In "The Baltimore of the Eighties," why does Mencken's mother lament about a trip to the market?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. Why did Mencken believe it was advantageous for him to have not attended college?

4. What criticisms did Mencken level at General John Pershing?

5. Why did Mencken criticize Woodrow Wilson?

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

7. Why are "handsome men" suspicious, according to "The Lure of Beauty"?

8. What criticisms did Mencken have for Theodore Dreiser?

9. Why do men usually marry women who are "basically hideous"?

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

(see the answer keys)

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