Read the passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the best answer to each of the following questions from 3...

Read the passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the best answer to each of the following questions from 31 to 40.

        Synthetic media has collapsed easy distinctions between capture and fabrication, unsettling habits of trust. In response, watermarking proposes “invisible fingerprints” that travel with AI outputs, enabling automated checks where human discernment falters. [I] Advocates argue that credibility can be architected, not merely assumed: if verification accompanies content, audiences regain footing. Yet sceptics warn that machine legibility may obscure human accountability, especially when systems are proprietary or inscrutable. The new contest, therefore, is less about dazzling creation than about restoring epistemic guardrails at scale.

        Standards widen the lens. Provenance frameworks such as C2PA aim to encode the chain of custody, linking artifacts to verifiable histories: who made what, using which tools, and how edits accumulated. [II] Rather than banning synthetic creativity, this approach distinguishes depiction from deception by surfacing origins. If metadata is cryptographically signed and tamper-evident, platforms can label, rank, or gate distribution accordingly. However, standard-setting is political: which institutions arbitrate protocols, and how transparency trades against privacy, safety, and creators’ legitimate anonymity in sensitive contexts?

        Watermarking is no panacea. Adversaries may strip signals, compress away markers, or forge look-alikes; rogue models will simply skip compliance. If marks are uneven, contested, or fragile, trust mechanisms risk becoming theatre: visible ritual without dependable protection. [III] Hence the call for multilayered defence  –  watermarking plus classifiers, policy enforcement, and public literacy  –  so that failure in one layer is caught by another. Within this fabric, the invisible tag helps honest actors declare origins while preserving ordinary user experience.

        Adoption is a cultural as much as a technical project. Tooling must expose provenance in familiar surfaces, with defaults that make checks frictionless and predictable. [IV] Pilots, audits, and cross-sector coalitions can refine thresholds, while appeal rights and human override sustain legitimacy. If audiences expect authenticity cues as they expect padlocks in browsers, vigilance becomes ambient rather than exhausting. In the long run, institutions that embed contestability alongside efficiency are likelier to preserve both creative abundance and civic trust.

(Adapted from Hetvi Gandhi, “Synthetic Media Watermarking and Authenticity Standards,” Reflections, Aug. 23, 2025)

Question 31. According to paragraph 1, ______ restores footing when human discernment falters.

A. watermarking that travels with content to enable automated checking

B. prohibitions on all synthetic media regardless of artistic or educational context

C. newsroom memoranda reminding audiences to simply trust official communications

D. influencer endorsements guaranteeing that viral clips are genuine by reputation