Questioned Documents Questions and Answers

Answer: A

The grazing angle in oblique light examination is 10°-15°.

Oblique or side lighting directs light almost parallel to the paper. At such a low grazing angle, indentations, erasures and disturbed paper fibres cast shadows and become visible, which is why it is used to read indented writing and to detect mechanical erasure.

The larger angles in the other options light the surface more evenly and weaken the shadows the method depends on, so the lowest range is the one used.

Answer: D

The statement that is not true, according to the key, is the one about the rolling marker pen.

Rollerball and similar marker inks are water-based and are coloured by dissolved dyes (gel versions use some pigments), so a claim that they contain inorganic metal oxides does not describe them. The other three statements fit standard accounts: ballpoint inks are dyes in glycol or other solvents, fountain pen inks are either the old iron-gallotannate type or aqueous synthetic dye, and fibre tip inks are solvent or water carriers.

What could not be confirmed: no source was found that states the composition of a 'rolling marker pen' or the exact solvent list for fibre tip inks, so the answer rests on elimination. D is the weakest of the four statements, which is why it is keyed.

Answer: B

Blobbing is found in writing with a ball point pen.

Blobs are small deposits of excess ink that collect around the ball and are left on the paper, especially at the start of strokes or after curves. With gooping and skipping, they are characteristic defects of ballpoint writing and help a document examiner identify the instrument.

Fountain pens show nib tracks and shading, sketch pens broad felt-tip strokes, and roller pens a smooth, even water-based line without such deposits.

Answer: B

The destructive technique for ink analysis is chromatography.

Thin-layer chromatography, the standard method for comparing ink dyes, requires punching or scraping small pieces of the ink line from the document and dissolving them, so part of the evidence is destroyed.

Lighting techniques (ultraviolet, infrared, oblique), infrared spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy examine the ink in place without removing it, so they are non-destructive and are used first.

Answer: C

A pre-existing ink line followed by a fold is indicated by a clean break of ink line.

If the writing was there before the paper was folded, the fold cuts across the dried ink line, and the line runs straight over the crease, often with a clean break or flaking where the fibres are bent.

If the writing was done after the fold, the ink meets broken, absorbent fibres in the crease and spreads into them, causing feathering or broadening of the line at the fold. So broadening and feathering point the other way.

Answer: C

The statement that is not true is that handwriting is unaffected by advancing years.

Handwriting changes with age: tremor, slower speed, poor line quality and changes in letter forms commonly appear in old age. Document examiners must account for this when comparing writings made years apart.

The other three are true: no one writes exactly the same way twice (natural variation), and stress, illness, alcohol and drugs can all alter a person's writing.

Answer: D

The answer is the piezoelectric effect.

In a piezoelectric inkjet print head, each ink chamber has a piezoelectric crystal in its wall. A voltage makes the crystal flex, which pushes a tiny droplet of ink out of the nozzle onto the paper. Epson printers use this principle; the other main type, the thermal or bubble jet, heats the ink to form a vapour bubble that ejects the drop.

Osmosis is the movement of solvent through a membrane and plays no part in ejecting ink. 'Newton effect' and 'Coulomb effect' are not the operating principles of inkjet printers.

Answer: B

ESDA stands for Electrostatic Detection Apparatus.

The ESDA reveals indented writing, the impressions left on a sheet that lay under the page being written on. The document is covered with a thin plastic film and charged with a corona wand, and toner applied to the film collects in the indentations, making the invisible writing readable. It is a standard instrument in questioned document examination.

The other expansions are invented. The instrument does not detect alterations as such; it detects indentations through electrostatic charge.

Answer: C

This combination is called line quality.

Line quality is the overall character of the written stroke: its smoothness or tremor, its speed, rhythm and pressure, and the writer's freedom of movement. It is one of the most important features in detecting forgery, because a simulated signature written slowly and carefully shows hesitation, blunt starts and tremor that natural writing does not.

Copybook form is the letter design taught at school, and the master pattern a writer's habitual forms. Kerning is the spacing between letters in typography. None describes the dynamic quality of the stroke.

Answer: B

The answer is graffiti.

Graffiti is writing or drawing on walls and other surfaces in public places, such as locker doors, mirrors and buses. Document examiners are sometimes asked to identify the writer of graffiti, comparing it with specimen writing done on similar surfaces and with the same kind of instrument.

Cacography is bad handwriting or spelling, hieroglyphics is the ancient Egyptian picture script, and 'arcograph' is not a recognised term for writing on unusual surfaces.