Directions: Read the following passages carefully and choose the appropriate answer to each of the questions out of the four alternatives.

Vincent van Gogh was a Dutch painter, famous for his passionate paintings and a life of extreme talent mixed with tragedy. Vincent van Gogh was born in 1853 and died in 1890, after befriending artists such as Paul Gauguin, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, and Georges Seurat. During his lifetime, Impressionism became widely accepted and artists such as Claude Monet became popular with their soft, pastel palettes and play with light. In contrast, Vincent van Gogh’s intense and often dark paintings were not widely favored at the time.  Van Gogh lived modestly and sold only a few paintings while he was alive. With financial and moral assistance from his beloved brother Theo, Vincent van Gogh was able to survive and pursue his desire to paint. He lived in Paris, then moved to Arles in Provence, France, and was later institutionalized in Saint-Remy, but continued to paint and draw. He was a solitary man, absorbed in, and some say obsessed by, his art. He was also a very compassionate man, giving away many of his possessions to those less fortunate. Originally, Vincent van Gogh had decided to become a minister, like his father. However, he later discovered his passion for painting and in only ten years created over 800 paintings and 800 drawings. Vincent van Gogh found subjects in his surroundings, thus painting portraits, landscapes, and images of places and people he encountered. He would often associate with humble, impoverished people, while he himself often lived in poverty. One of his most famous paintings is “The Potato Eaters,” which depicts peasants and expresses how their lives are intertwined with manual labor and the earth. Many subjects of Vincent van Gogh’s paintings also included beauty found in nature as he would take long walks in wheat fields, along ponds, through fields of flowers, and among giant cypress trees.