View a FREE sample

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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

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

3. What was the general atmosphere of the Democratic National Convention of 1932, as reported by Mencken?
(a) Quiet, like a gentlemen's club.
(b) A complete circus.
(c) Stuffy and mannered.
(d) Like Mafia men meeting at a restaurant, as the politicians are all corrupt.

4. According to Mencken, why was Samuel Johnson unique as an artist?
(a) He always gave to charity, and artists are infamous misers.
(b) He never turned against his country, unlike all artists.
(c) He never cared about his own fame or legacy.
(d) He has a particularly thrilling prose style.

5. Which is the best style of architecture, according to Mencken?
(a) Art Nouveau.
(b) Futurism.
(c) Modernism.
(d) English Eighteenth Century.

Short Answer Questions

1. What would best describe how Mencken felt about stage acting?

2. What might Mencken say was Grover Cleveland's defining trait?

3. Which of the following is NOT a trait of the writer, according to Mencken in "The Author at Work"?

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

5. In "Valentino," what did the press find in a men's bathroom that caused them to mock Valentino and his "Latin Lover" image?

Short Essay Questions

1. What type of people attended the Progressive Party convention of 1948?

2. What were the general features of Anglo-Saxons, according to Mencken in "The Anglo-Saxon"?

3. What caused Mencken to question the American psyche in "The Libido for the Ugly"?

4. According to Mencken in "The Calamity of Appomattox," what would have happened if the Civil War had never happened?

5. How did Mencken--with tongue firmly in cheek--try to justify a man's murdering of his wife in "A Good Man Gone Wrong"?

6. For what reasons did Mencken admire Grover Cleveland?

7. Contemporaries wrote that Calvin Coolidge bore several similarities to Abraham Lincoln. Why did Mencken disagree with this claim?

8. According to "The Author at Work," why do writers write?

9. In "The Noble Experiment," what story did Mencken relate about acquiring alcohol at the Republican National Convention?

10. What was Mencken's opinion of stage acting?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 988 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample