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THE MASK OF BEAUTY

1. ________________________
The green ocean sparkles in the sunshine and tall palm trees wave gently in the wind. Young women roller-
skate along the pavement, a young sun-tanned lifeguard walks along the beach. This is Huntingdon Beach,
just south of Los Angeles, where everyone seems to be young and beautiful.

2. _________________________
It is also the home of successful surgeon, Dr Stephen Marquardt, who believes that he has discovered a
scientific formula for measuring beauty. And in a city like Los Angeles, where being attractive means
everything, this kind of knowledge could be worth a fortune.
3. _________________________
He is by no means the first person to try to discover exactly what makes people attractive. The ancient
Greeks were among the first to look into the question. Plato believed that it should be possible to define a
beautiful face in terms of mathematics. Over the centuries, others continued the hunt for the formula, but
without any real success.
4. _________________________
Dr Marquardt, however, says he has now found the answer. He has developed a practical way of measuring
beauty, which he calls “the mask”. This is the series of lines and shapes making up a face. There are
specific, set distances between all the features and the outside shape, and it shows the exact proportions that
the ideally beautiful face should have.
5.__________________________
By laying the mask over a photograph of a face, it is possible to see how attractive someone is – the more a
face fits the mask, the more beautiful it is said to be. The fact that the mak can measure the beauty of men,
women and people, of different races makes it a particularly useful instrument.
6. __________________________
It is alarming to think that, if we all start changing the way we look, there may soon be thousands of
individuals wandering the streets of Los Angeles looking exactly the same. But it is even more alarming
that people may begin to think they are unattractive if their face does not have the proportions of Dr
Markquardt's mask.
7. __________________________
This would be a great mistake, because there are two sorts of beauty – one is the beauty of the mask, the
measurable beauty of the face. The other sort is the kind that we see when we love someone, a much more
powerful, enduring beauty that comes from the heart. This is the beauty expressed by poets, the beauty that
does not fade, and it is something that no plastic surgeon on earth can give you.

1. Read the text and choose the headings for each paragraph.
a. An adaptable tool
b. The latest solution
c. An unsuccessful search
d. Forever beautiful
e. An important discovery?
f. The face without lines
g. Worrying thoughts
h. Land of youth and beauty

2. Read the sentences and write T(true), F (false), NS (Not stated):

a. You can see attractive people on the beaches of Los Angeles. T/F/NS.
b. To be attractive is a crucial point in the career in movies. T/F/NS.
c. Roman people were first to think about how beauty is important for success. T/F/NS.
d. Dr Marquardt invented a set of rules to measure the beauty of face. T/F/NS.
e. The mask can measure the beauty of all human faces. T/F/NS.
f. Dr Marquard's mask can be harmful for human self-esteem. T/F/NS.
g. There are three sorts of beauty. T/F/NS.

3. Correct the mistakes in the sentences:

a. Dr Stephen Marquardt believes that he has discovered a scientific formula for measuring health.
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b. Plato believed that it should be possible to define a beautiful face in terms of biology.
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c. Dr Stephen Marquardt has developed a practical way of measuring beauty, which he calls “the coat”.
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d. By laying the mask over a photograph of a face, it is possible to see how clever someone is – the more a
face fits the mask, the more beautiful it is said to be.
____________________________________________________________________
e. But it is even more alarming that people may begin to think they are stupid if their face does not have the
proportions of Dr Markquardt's mask.
____________________________________________________________________
f. There are two sorts of beauty – one is the beauty of the mask, the undescribable beauty of the face. The
other sort is the kind that we see when we love someone, a much more intelligent, enduring beauty that
comes from the heart.
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