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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does the "believer" type of person inevitably do?
(a) Maintains a faith in the improbable.
(b) Thinks they are better than everyone.
(c) Betrays friends as well as lovers.
(d) Annoys the company he or she is with.

2. What kind of promises do politicians make?
(a) Ones they can fulfill.
(b) Ones they have no intention of fulfilling.
(c) Ones they have polled voters about.
(d) Ones they cannot deliver.

3. How does Mencken characterize a woman's level of civility?
(a) Women do not submit to civilization and must be coerced.
(b) Women are relatively uncivilized.
(c) Women have created their own civilization quite distinct from men.
(d) Women are much more civilized than men.

4. What subject does Mencken begin his volume with?
(a) The horrors of the carnival.
(b) The mysteries of women.
(c) The nature of man.
(d) The automobile.

5. What does Mencken believe about the concept of evil?
(a) Evil is just another word for good; it's all relative.
(b) Evil is a made-up term, and does not really exist.
(c) Evil is the reason why children are born.
(d) Evil is real, and exists all around us.

6. What is the problem with trying to punishment a government for not working well?
(a) There are too many bureaucracies and it is impossible to determine who to punish.
(b) Punishing the government will lead to revenge tactics.
(c) Voting is usually rigged.
(d) The government itself is in control of the means of punishment.

7. How did morality come to be, according to Mencken?
(a) Morality evolved from the innate sense of right and wrong in children.
(b) Morality evolved from social practices required to survive.
(c) Morality is a creation of the Christian church.
(d) Morality is the product of the woman's insidious influence over man.

8. In Chapter 7, Mencken notes that there are too few books written about what subject?
(a) Death.
(b) True crime.
(c) Women.
(d) Taxes.

9. What "call" does Mencken make to America's poets in Chapter 7?
(a) He wishes them to speak upon the beauty of the female figure.
(b) He wishes them to rewrite Ode to a Grecian Urn.
(c) He wishes them to write a funeral service for the damned.
(d) He wishes them to burn all of their poems and drown themselves.

10. What or who rules the American South?
(a) A love for automobiles and technology.
(b) Secular liberals.
(c) Baptist and Methodist "barbarism".
(d) An aristocratic class.

11. What is Man's one unique characteristic, per Chapter 1?
(a) The ability to betray.
(b) Imagination.
(c) Optimism.
(d) Romantic feeling.

12. Who is the "ideal citizen of Christendom" according to Chapter 3?
(a) An emotionally cold woman.
(b) Young men full of passion.
(c) Young men drained of passion.
(d) The hapless hero of a female novel.

13. At what event did Mencken first personally encounter William Jennings Bryan?
(a) The Scopes Monkey trial.
(b) The 1912 Democratic National Convention.
(c) The funeral of Grover Cleveland.
(d) Bryan's congressional trial for corruption.

14. How would George Washington fare in today's political climate?
(a) He would have no chance of winning any political office.
(b) He would easily be elected president.
(c) He would be arrested for corruption.
(d) He would be bewildered by modern methods and unable to perform his duties.

15. What was the goal of early democratists?
(a) The overthrow of the wealthy.
(b) Definitions of concepts like truth and beauty.
(c) Philosophical frameworks to support democracy.
(d) Concrete material gains.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why did England experience particular difficulties in World War I according to Mencken?

2. Punishment for crime is too often what, according to Mencken?

3. What does the "romantic" type of person inevitably do?

4. Which is NOT one of the reasons Mencken praises George Washington?

5. Which politician does Mencken refer to as "a good man in a bad trade"?

(see the answer keys)

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