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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Mencken believe is the proper focus of psychology?
(a) The study of psychological differences between people from various trades or types.
(b) The study of mob mentality.
(c) The study of physical deformity (such as injury) on the mind.
(d) The origins of lying.

2. What two types of rich people does Mencken see in America?
(a) Slave masters and slaves.
(b) Money wasters and those who purchase public esteem.
(c) Investors in real estate and investors in bonds.
(d) Noble heroes and wicked villains.

3. What is the usual relationship between an artist and his countrymen?
(a) The artist is in perfect harmony with the community.
(b) The artist has no relationship to his community.
(c) The artist is at odds with his community.
(d) The artist works for the community.

4. What is the second-worst job in the world, according to Chapter 17?
(a) Market vendor.
(b) Writer.
(c) Priest.
(d) Policeman.

5. What was Roosevelt's team of political advisers popularly called?
(a) The Washington Eggheads.
(b) The Brooklyn Thirteen.
(c) The Brain Trust.
(d) Roosevelt's Riveters.

6. Sister Aimee was an evangelist in what branch of Christian religion?
(a) Catholic.
(b) Scientologist.
(c) Baptist.
(d) Methodist.

7. Why does Mencken believe life on other planets is highly unlikely?
(a) There is a lack of carbon on most planets.
(b) God only created life on Earth.
(c) There is too much methane on most planets.
(d) Temperatures elsewhere than earth cannot sustain life.

8. For Mencken, what is the nature of the range of the central psychological spectrum upon which all humans reside?
(a) From calm to paranoid.
(b) From slave mentality to free mentality.
(c) From cold to romantic.
(d) From introvert to extrovert.

9. Why does the topic of "disease" give pathologists pause?
(a) Medicine largely does not know how to combat disease.
(b) Pathologists are extremely underfunded.
(c) It is very hard to define.
(d) It is difficult to deal with terminal cases.

10. What BEST characterizes Mencken's view of the townspeople involved in the Scopes Monkey Trial?
(a) Simple but endearing.
(b) Secularists.
(c) Intelligent and probing.
(d) Backwoods hicks.

11. According to Mencken, how will "anyone who appreciates aural beauty" regard opera?
(a) Beautiful.
(b) Obnoxious.
(c) Inspirational.
(d) Absurd.

12. What word might Mencken use to characterize Mary Baker G. Eddy?
(a) Saint.
(b) Fraud.
(c) Necessary.
(d) Intellectual.

13. In Chapter 15, Mencken expresses surprise that no one has violated the tomb of which man?
(a) George Washington.
(b) Charles Joseph Bonaparte.
(c) Oliver Wendell Holmes.
(d) Grover Cleveland.

14. Who did the Black Plague mostly kill off, according to Mencken?
(a) Proletarians of low intelligence.
(b) Monarchs of low intelligence.
(c) Monarchs of high intelligence.
(d) Proletarians of high intelligence.

15. Who does Mencken call "the national ideal of a literary character"?
(a) Joseph Conrad.
(b) William Dean Howells.
(c) Ring Lardner.
(d) Ambrose Bierce.

Short Answer Questions

1. What do men become once they accumulate wealth?

2. Who wrote Parsifal?

3. What is the contemporary invention that Mencken likes most?

4. What quality makes for the best literary critic, according to Chapter 24?

5. Which author does Mencken believe is for "lunch-table idealists"?

(see the answer keys)

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