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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which decade, according to the author, was Mencken at his best?

2. According to "The Skeptic," what do women always bear?

3. Who is the editor of this volume?

4. According to Mencken, what was the Union fighting for in the Civil War?

5. Which was NOT a source of loud noise in the Baltimore of the 1880s, according to Mencken?

Short Essay Questions

1. What was Mencken's opinion of Ralph Waldo Emerson's "The American Scholar"?

2. What was the chief problem of a Baltimore summer, according to Mencken in "The Baltimore of the Eighties"?

3. How did Mencken answer the question of whether successful men should have mistresses?

4. How must men react to a woman's allure?

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

6. According to Mencken, Theodore Dreiser had what emotional effect on the reader?

7. In "A Blind Spot," why was Mencken impervious to the ills of democracy?

8. In "Gore in the Caribees," what becames of the rebel leader, Jose Miguel Gomez?

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

10. What is the difference between men and women in regards to trust, according to "The Skeptic"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Articles such as "Theodore Dreiser" and "Masters of Tone" present Mencken the art critic.

A) What can Mencken's criticisms reveal about his theory of art? Cite specific examples.

B) What can Mencken's criticisms reveal about his own preferences? Can art be objectively excellent, or does it always depend upon the viewer/spectator?

Essay Topic 2

A modern controversy swirled around the issue of whether or not Mencken was a racist.

A) What might the article "Anglo-Saxon" tell us about settling the issue of Mencken's racism?

B) What might the article "The Calamity of Appomattox" tell us about settling the issue of Mencken's racism?

C) How does Mencken's frequent sarcasm and tongue-in-cheek tone complicate this controversy?

Essay Topic 3

Man-woman relationships were a frequent topic of study, as in "The Art Eternal" and "The Incomparable Buzz-Saw." How does Mencken view the dynamic between men and women? What are the differences between men and women? In what way do men and women engage in courtship?

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