HESI Critical Reading Practice Test 1

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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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