Well, half way, anyway.
Brad, Nick,
an alarm circuit that requires an EOL resistor is designed to see a certain range of resistance, what you'd expect the resistance of the series-run wire plus the EOL resistor to be. Resistance above or below the acceptable range triggers an alarm condition.

If the EOL resistor is placed in the alarm box and separate wires run in parallel to the sensors, the system won't protect against a wire being cut, since that won't raise the resistance seen by the alarm. It WILL protect against a short, though, since a short on any of the parallel wires will lower the resistance seen by the alarm to near zero.

If I had to guess and build an alarm system that didn't meet spec, I'd guess that a fire alarm that would indicate only shorts would work better than one that only indicated opens, since fire is more likely to melt insulation and create a short condition than melt copper and create an open. NEITHER OF THESE is acceptable, of course.