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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through 15-18.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What human flaw does democracy depend upon, according to Mencken?
(a) Vanity.
(b) Rage.
(c) Envy.
(d) Greed.

2. In which city did Mencken grow up?
(a) Baltimore.
(b) Cincinnati.
(c) Pittsburgh.
(d) Washington, D.C.

3. What did Mencken feel about "American thinking"?
(a) It is timid and superficial.
(b) It is full of awesome promise.
(c) It is cautious, yet optimistic.
(d) It is bold and visionary.

4. According to Mencken, what kind of books did Theodore Dreiser produce?
(a) Breezy, summer-day reading.
(b) Wheezing, moralizing diatribes.
(c) Books more important as museum pieces than texts that should be read.
(d) Weighty, substantial tomes that one must concentrate on for a long time.

5. What criticism did Mencken have for the effect of the Emancipation Proclamation?
(a) It freed all slaves, when to preserve peace it should have freed only some.
(b) It directly led to the Battle of Shiloh.
(c) It only freed specific slaves, and not all slaves.
(d) It freed slaves all at once, when it should have done it in a gradual way.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Mencken call a man who resists the charms of women?

2. What did Mencken satirize in "Quid Est Veritas"?

3. What was the "last straw" that forced Mencken to quit the organization in #16?

4. What do saints have in common with scientists?

5. In "Gore in the Caribees," what was Mencken's perspective on the revolution in Cuba?

(see the answer key)

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