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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. How did Mencken describe the music of Bach?
(a) "Silver macaroni, exquisitely tangled."
(b) "The Deaf leading the Equally-Deaf."
(c) "Heaven upon a creamy macaroon."
(d) "Genesis I, I"

2. What was "lamentable" about the North beating the South in the Civil War, according to Mencken?
(a) The quality of tobacco was never the same.
(b) The South's aristocracy was destroyed.
(c) Technological innovation was delayed by 25 years.
(d) The slaves were freed.

3. What was the art discussed in "The Comedian"?
(a) Stage acting.
(b) Pantomime.
(c) Television situational comedy.
(d) Street musicianship.

4. Why, according to Mencken, do virtuous people end up sinning the worst?
(a) The virtuous don't know how to handle sin, and thus get carried away.
(b) To be "virtuous" is a lie: the virtuous are among the most sinful among us.
(c) Virtuous people give of themselves so much, they are empty inside.
(d) Virtuous people do difficult work, and this work drives them insane.

5. What did Mencken attribute to the fall of the "good man" in "A Good Man Gone Wrong"?
(a) A runaway automobile.
(b) A nagging housewife.
(c) A Presbyterian upbringing.
(d) An "unspeakable force in the universe."

Short Answer Questions

1. What was Mencken's epitaph?

2. Which was NOT a reason Mencken used in his assessment that houses are ugly in "The Libido for the Ugly"?

3. According to Mencken, why was Samuel Johnson unique as an artist?

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

5. What was the subject of "The Noble Experiment"?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. According to "The Wallace Paranoia," what did candidate Henry Wallace do during the convention of the Progressive Party?

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

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

5. What did Mencken conclude about his research into the court cases of Oliver Wendell Holmes?

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

7. What was Mencken's opinion of chiropractic?

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

9. What stance did Mencken take in "Mencken's Last Stand"?

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

(see the answer keys)

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