I just noticed that as of this morning (Beijing time) the sample sentences in all of the writing tests display the character(s) I should write rather than having blanks masking those characters until after I complete attempt.

This is certainly new behavior and it's very distracting (try not to look at that pink elephant standing over there when asked to draw a pink elephant from memory).

I am using Safari/OS X and studying Chinese Simplified characters (if any of that matters).

I think I've fixed this--sorry about that! A strange race condition was causing it.

Yep, that did it. Thanks!