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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. Who did Mencken NOT count among the "crackpots" present in "The Wallace Paranoia"?

2. What was Mencken's epitaph?

3. What was the source of Oliver Wendell Holmes' allure?

4. What was "lamentable" about the North beating the South in the Civil War, according to Mencken?

5. What was the art discussed in "The Comedian"?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. Why did Mencken take issue with Oliver Wendell Holmes' final court case?

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

4. Did Mencken's aesthetics conform to the ideals of the "new architecture"? Explain.

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

6. Describe the religious service Mencken witnessed in "The Hills of Zion."

7. What was Mencken's opinion of chiropractic?

8. What did Mencken feel were the true and most damaging consequences of the Civil War, according to "The Calamity of Appomattox"?

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Like any accomplished columnist, Mencken knew how to tell a good story, as in "The Noble Experiment" and "The Hills of Zion."

A) What agenda, if any, did Mencken have in sharing the stories of "The Noble Experiment"? Use examples from the text.

B) What agenda, if any, did Mencken have in sharing the story of "The Hills of Zion"? Use examples from the text.

Essay Topic 2

Mencken could be said to operate from an anti-war stance, as in "Star-Spangled Man."

A) How does Mencken make this bias clear? Cite examples from the text.

B) What is Mencken's opinion of World War I? How was the war started? Why might it have been prevented?

C) Is Mencken's anti-war bias explicit or implicit? Cite examples.

Essay Topic 3

Mencken's style and tone are widely celebrated. Using several examples from the text, discuss Mencken's approach to style and tone. How does Mencken present himself to the reader? Who does he posit as his reader? What rhetorical devices does he use to persuade the reader of his position?

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