A. Please read the introductory paragraph of the article.
Like many children of the 1960’s, I have long entertained James Bond fantasies. While walking to work in midtown Manhattan, I often imagine myself as an agent for the British intelligence service, hunting down Dr. No or Goldfinger or Blofeld as the silhouette of beautiful women dance languidly in the background. I drink vodka martinis (shaken, not stirred) and I would certainly drive an Aston Martin if I could afford one.
B. Now click here for the second paragraph where you will have to fill the gaps with prepositions.
C. In each of the following passages numbered 1 to 5, you will find underlined choices between 3 or 4 possibilities. Indicate your choice by typing the correct answer in the space provided and click on the SUBMIT button. DO NOT TYPE THE LETTER, TYPE THE WORDS YOU THINK ARE CORRECT.
1. (a) For (b) During (c) Since years, researchers have been tinkering with identification systems that could recognise a user’s voice, face, handwriting, or patterns in the iris and retina ( the field is (a) knew (b) known (c) know (d) new as biometrics ).
2. Fingerprint identification is the simplest method because (a) all (b) whole (c) every print has a unique set of (a) clear (b)cleared (c) clearly defined markers : the coordinates of the minutiae points, the places where the epidermal (a) ridges (b) riddles (c) rifles (d) rifts begin and end.
3. These points are (a) that (b) what (c) which the police use to match the fingerprints left at a crime scene with those of a suspect.
4. In some ways, (a) tough (b) though (c) although (d) thought , a fingerprint verification device for PC users must be more fault-tolerant than the systems (a) device (b) devise (c) devise for law-enforcement agencies. Police officers can make sure they get readable prints by carefully rolling a suspect's fingers on a traditional ink card or an electronic scanner.
5. In contrast, (a) most of (b) the most (c) most (d) the most of PC users won't be so meticulous ; a commercial system must be (a) able to (b) allowed to (c) likely to verify their prints even if their fingers are positioned sloppily or speckled with glazed sugar.
D. Read carefully the last two paragraphs and find the words that corrrespond (in this particular text) to the definitions or the synonyms given below the text.
The security system developed by DigitalPersona, a firm based in Redwood City, Calif., is designed to recognise even the muddiest fingerprints. The company’s U.are.U 4000 sensor is smaller than a deck of cards and has an oval plastic window on which you place your finger. As your digit nears the window, six LEDs in the device shine light against the inside surface of the plastic. The light is angled in such a way that it is totally reflected if there is nothing but air above the window. But if a substance with a higher index of refraction — such as skin — is pressed against the window, the light will be absorbed at the points of contact, a phenomenon called frustrated total internal reflection. So the reflected light, which is read by a charge-coupled device inside the sensor, bears the pattern of the fingerprint.
Now read the definitions or the synonyms and type your answers in the space provided. Type the words exactly as you find them in the text.
The sensor sends the resulting image (encrypted, of course) to your computer's microprocessor. Using a variety of complex algorithms, the DigitalPersona software determines the coordinates of up to 70 minutiae points and packages the data in a 300-byte template. The system compares these templates to match fingerprints ; the fingerprint images themselves are erased to prevent any possibility of theft. Because each template also contains data about the angles of the fingerprints ridges, the software is able to make a match even when the orientation of the finger is quite different from its placement when the print was originally recorded. Other algorithms analyse the overall ridge flow — the oddly beautiful loops, whirls and deltas — to decipher any smudgy parts of the image. The entire process takes about 200 milliseconds.
Once again read the definitions or the synonyms and type your answers in the space provided. Type the words exactly as you find them in the text.