Early ________ of maladjustment to college culture is _______ by the tendency to develop friendship networks outside college which mask signals of maladjustment.

Let's first try to make sense of the sentence without the blanks.

The sentence conveys that something related to maladjustment or improper adjustment to the college environment is masked by the tendency to make friends outside the college.

Identification can be masked; treatment, prevention, and detection cannot. So identification is the correct choice for blank A.

For blank B, "complicated" also fits, as the tendency to make friends outside college can complicate the process of identifying maladjustment to the college environment.

Therefore, option A is the correct choice.