Section A
Directions: In this section, there is a passage with ten blanks. You are required to select one word for each blank from a list of choices given in a word bank following the passage. Read the passage through carefully before making your choices. Each choice in the bank is identified by a letter. Please mark the corresponding letter for each item on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre. You may not use any of the words in the bank more than once.

Super realistic masks are made from flexible materials such as silicone and are designed to imitate real human face—down to every last detail.

In a study by the Universities of York and Kyoto, researchers asked participants to look at pairs of photographs and decide which showed a normal face and which showed a person wearing a mask.

Surprisingly, participants made the wrong call in one-in-five cases.

The 20% error rate observed in the study likely underestimates the extent to which people would struggle to tell an artificial face from the real thing outside of the lab.

The researchers collected data from participants from both the UK and Japan to identify any differences according to race. When trial participants were asked to choose between photographs of faces of a different race from theirs, response times were slower and selections were 5% less accurate.

There are now dozens of criminal cases in which offenders have passed themselves off as people of a different age, race or gender, sending police investigations down the wrong path.

In one recent case, an international gang used an extremely realistic mask to pose as a French minister, cheating business executives out of millions of pounds.

Dr. Jet Sanders, who worked on the study while a PhD student at the University of York, said: "Failure to detect synthetic faces may have important implications for security and crime prevention as super realistic masks may allow the key characteristics of a person's appearance to be falsely identified."

A) accurate   B) allow   C) artificial   D) cheating   E) deserted   F) establish   G) extremely   H) immediately   I) incorrectly   J) normal   K) observed   L) passed   M) reminding   N) reparable   O) resolve