Critical Reading Practice Test 1
Directions: Questions follow each of the passages below. Using only the stated or implied information in each passage and in its introduction, if any, answer the questions.
Passage
...
Critical Reading Practice Test 1
Directions: Questions follow each of the passages below. Using only the stated or implied information in each passage and in its introduction, if any, answer the questions.
Passage 1
Gauguin decided to settle in Mataiea, some
forty-five kilometres from Papeete, probably
on the advice of a Tahitian chief whom
he had befriended. There he rented a
(5)native-style oval bamboo hut, roofed with
pandanu leaves. Once settled, he was in a
position to begin work in earnest and to
tackle serious figure studies. It was probably
soon after this that he painted Vahine
(10)no te tiare, his first portrait of a Tahitian
model.By the late summer of 1892 the completed
canvas was back in Paris, hanging in the
Goupil gallery. From the many subsequent
(15) references to this image in his correspondence,
it is clear that Gauguin set considerable
store by his “Tahitienne” and, by
sending her on ahead to Paris, wanted her
to serve as an ambassadress for the further
(20) images of Tahitian women he would be
bringing back with him on his return. He
pressed his male friends for their reactions
to the girl, rather than to the picture, anxious
to know whether they, like him, would
(25) be responsive to the beauty of her face:
“And her forehead,” he later wrote, “with
the majesty of upsweeping lines, reminded
me of that saying of Poe’s, ‘There is no
perfect beauty without a certain singularity
(30) in the proportions.’” No one, it seems, was
quite attuned to his emotional perception:
while Aurier was enthusiastic, excited by
the picture’s rarity value, Schuffenecker
was somewhat taken aback by the painting’s (35) lack of Symbolist character. Indeed,
apart from the imaginary floral background
which harked back to Gauguin’s 1888
Self-Portrait, the image is a relatively
straightforward one. Recent anthropological
(40) work, backed by the use of photography,
had scientifically characterized the
physical distinctions between the different
races, distinctions that in the past had been
imperfectly understood. Generally speaking,
(45) artists before Gauguin’s time had represented
Tahitians as idealized types,
adjusting their features and proportions to
accord with European taste. This meant
that hitherto the Tahitian in Western art
(50) could scarcely be distinguished from his
African or Asian counterpart.
Unfortunately, Charles Giraud’s paintings
have disappeared, so we cannot compare
them with Gauguin’s, but this first image
(55) by Gauguin suggests a desire to portray the
Tahitian physiognomy naturalistically,
without the blinkers of preconceived rules
of beauty laid down by a classical culture.
Naturalism as an artistic creed, though,
(60) was anathema to Gauguin; it made the
artist a lackey of science and knowledge
rather than a god-like creator. He wanted
to go beyond empirical observation of this
kind, to find a way of painting Tahiti that
(65) would accord with his Symbolist aspirations,
that would embody the feelings he
had about the place and the poetic image
he carried with him of the island’s mysterious
past.
Q1. In lines 15–16, the word “correspondence” means
A. correlation.
B. agreement.
C. conformity.
D. similarity.
E. letters.
Answer _E___
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