READING TEST #10
Directions: In this section of the test, you will read FOUR different passages, each followed by 10 questions about it. For questions 1-40, you are to choose the best answer A, B, C or D, to each question. Then, on your answer sheet, find the number of the question and fill in the space that corresponds to the letter of the answer you have chosen. Answer all questions following a passage on the basis of what is stated or implied in that passage.
You have 60 minutes to answer all the questions, including the time to transfer your answers to the answer sheet.
PASSAGE 1
Questions 1-10
Starry nights and sunflowers, self-portraits and café settings – all painted in bold, intense colors. Today, people around the world immediately recognize these as the work of Vincent van Gogh, the Dutch painter. [A]
Vincent van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853, in a small village in southern Holland. As a child, he was serious and sensitive. He loved to draw, and his work showed talent, but no one encouraged him to become an artist. Instead, his father thought he should take a “sensible” job – something like a salesclerk or carpenter. As a young adult, he wandered from job to job with little success and very little money, becoming more depressed with each failure. In March 1880, however, just before his 27th birthday, something changed inside Van Gogh. He realized that he was meant to be a painter, and he began to study art in Brussels, receiving a subsidy from his brother Theo, which helped him to live. [B]
In 1886, Van Gogh moved to Paris, hoping to learn more about color techniques being used by Impressionist artists there. Instead of grays and browns, his work began to emphasize blue and red and then yellow and orange. Soon he began to see life differently: Go slow. Stop thinking. Look around. You’ll see something beautiful if you open yourself. These were the principles that guided his art. With his innovative color combinations, Van Gogh wanted to show his viewers how to better appreciate a flower, the night sky, or a person’s face.
Few who lived in Van Gogh’s time appreciated his work, however. Many laughed when they saw his paintings, which hurt the sensitive artist terribly. In February 1888, he moved away from Paris to Arles, a town in southern France. Often he could not eat or sleep, and stayed up into the early morning hours painting. Days passed, and he spoke to no one. Following an argument with fellow artist Paul Gauguin, Van Gogh took a razor and cut off his own earlobe.
He never explained why, but by now, many were convinced that Van Gogh was crazy, and indeed, his mental health started to decline. He began to have attacks during which he would hear strange sounds and think people were trying to hurt him. In the spring of 1889, he was sent to a mental hospital in St. Rémy, a town near Arles.
What exactly was van Gogh suffering from? No one knows for sure, but some now think it may have been a form of manic depression. Whatever his condition, Van Gogh’s illness both inhibited and inspired his creativity. When his attacks came, he could not paint. But during his periods of calm, he was able to complete more than a hundred masterpieces, including the classic Starry Night. “Working on my pictures is almost a necessity for my recovery.” he wrote.
Following his release from the hospital in May 1890, Van Gogh took a room in a town just north of Paris. For the 70 days that he lived there, he produced, on average, a painting a day. Until his death, however, he was unable to sell a single one; today, those paintings would be worth more than a billion U.S. dollars. [C]
It was at this time that Van Gogh either borrowed or stole a gun. On the afternoon of July 27, 1890, he went out to the country and shot himself in the stomach. Two days later, Vincent Van Gogh died at age 37. What caused him to take his own life – his lack of financial success, mental illness, his loneliness? [D]
Câu 1: Which statement is NOT true about Van Gogh’s youth?
- A. He grew up in Holland.
- B. He was born in a small village.
- C. His parents encouraged his artistic talent.
- D. He tried several jobs but was unsuccessful.
- A. to advise when Van Gogh was born
- B. to describe how Van Gogh became a painter
- C. to show that Van Gogh was a troubled man
- D. to show how Van Gogh survived on his own
- A. Van Gogh was unhappy working with painters in Holland.
- B. Van Gogh’s move to Paris changed his attitude toward art.
- C. Van Gogh was less successful than other Impressionist painters.
- D. Van Gogh’s paintings of flowers were very popular in Paris.
- A. I need to paint in order to heal myself.
- B. I need to get better so that I can paint again.
- C. I will improve only if I stop painting.
- D. I will paint only after I feel better.
- A. left
- B. moved into
- C. stole from
- D. sold
- A. manic depression
- B. sleeplessness
- C. heart attack
- D. people are unsure about his illness.
- A. 27
- B. about 70
- C. 100
- D. more than 100
- A. lack of financial success
- B. mental illness
- C. his parents’ lack of support
- D. loneliness
- A. They were sold after his death.
- B. They were loved by people at his time.
- C. Van Gogh used different colors especially gray and brown in his paintings.
- D. Most of them were painted during his attacks.
- A. [A]
- B. [B]
- C. [C]
- D. [D]
PASSAGE 2
Questions 11-20
Mesa Verde is the center of the prehistoric Anasazi culture. It is located in the high plateau lands near Four Corners in the U.S. Southwest, where Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona come together. The climate in this region is dry, but at the bottom of deeply cut canyons, seeps, springs, and tiny streams can be found. These provided the water for the Anasazi crops of corn, beans, squash, tobacco, and cotton. Farming was the main business of these people, but the Anasazi domesticated the wild turkey, hunted deer, rabbits, and mountain sheep, and gathered wild plants.
For a thousand years the Anasazi lived at Mesa Verde. These Native Americans were not related to the Navajos, who came to the area long after the Anasazi. However, because no one knows what the Anasazi actually called themselves, they are commonly called by their Navajo name, which means “the ancient ones” in the Navajo language.
The first Anasazi people, who are called the Basket Makers by archaeologists, came to the area around 550. This formerly nomadic group began to live a more settled life. They built underground dwellings called pit houses. These were clustered into small villages, mostly on top of mesas but also on ledges on the walls of the cliffs that formed the Mesa.
In the next 300 years, the Anasazi made rapid technological progress, including the refinement of basket making, pottery making, jewelry making, leather working, and weaving. Stone Age people, the Anasazi did not use metal, but they skillfully shaped bone, stone, and wood into a variety of tools for grinding, cutting, scraping, and polishing. About 750, they began building houses above ground. At first these houses were made of poles and mud, but later they were made of sandstone. This period of development is known as the Early Pueblo Period.
The Great Pueblo Period (1100-1300) was Mesa Verde’s classic age. The population grew to about 5,000. The Anasazis’ level of technology continued to rise. Around 1200, there was another major population shift. The Anasazi moved from the mesa tops to the ledges on the steep sides of cliffs where some of their ancestors had lived centuries earlier. On these ledges, the Anasazi built two- and three-story dwellings made of sandstone blocks held together with mortar made of mud. There were no doors on the first floors, and people had to use ladders to get into the buildings. Rooms averaged about six feet by nine feet (two meters by three meters). They were plastered on the inside and decorated with painted symbols. Smaller, isolated rooms were used for crop storage. The largest village (Cliff Palace) had 217 rooms. All the villages had underground chambers called kivas. Men held tribal councils there and also used them for secret religious ceremonies and clan meetings. Winding paths, ladders, and steps cut in the stone led from the villages to the valley below. One might surmise that these settlements were built on the cliffs for protection, but the Anasazi had no known enemies, and there is no sign of warfare.
A bigger mystery is why the Anasazi occupied their villages for such a short time. By 1300 Mesa Verde was deserted. It is generally thought that the Anasazi abandoned their settlements because of a prolonged drought, overpopulation, crop failure, or some combination of these. They probably moved southward and were incorporated into the pueblo villages that the Spanish explorers encountered two hundred years later. Their descendants may still live in the Southwest.
Câu 11: Which animal was NOT hunted by the Anasazi?
- A. sheep
- B. turkeys
- C. deer
- D. rabbit
- A. growing crops
- B. hunting wild animals
- C. raising domestic animals
- D. gathering wild plants
- A. mobile
- B. cultural
- C. ethnic
- D. small
- A. pots
- B. leather goods
- C. metal tools
- D. jewelry
- A. Before they came to Mesa Verde
- B. During the Early Pueblo Period
- C. Between 850 and 1100
- D. During the Great Pueblo Period
- A. To pueblo villages in the south
- B. Onto the tops of the mesa
- C. Onto the floors of the canyon
- D. To settlements on the ledges of cliff walls
- A. wood
- B. mud
- C. stone
- D. plaster
- A. buildings
- B. dwellings
- C. doors
- D. rooms
- A. clan meetings
- B. food storage
- C. religious ceremonies
- D. tribal councils
- A. drought
- B. overpopulation
- C. war
- D. crop failure
