Electronic mail has become an extremely importantand popular means of communication.
The convenience and efficiency of electronicmail are threatened by the extremely rapid growthin the volume of unsolicited commercial electronicmail. Unsolicited commercial electronic mail iscurrently estimated to account for over half of allelectronic mall traffic, up from an estimated 7 percent in 2001, and the volume continues torise. Most of these messages are fraudulent or deceptive in one or more respects.
The receipt of unsolicited commercial electronic mail may result in costs to recipients whocannot refuse to accept such mail and who incur costs for the storage of such mail, or for thetime spent accessing, reviewing, and discarding such mail, or for both. The receipt of a largenumber of unwanted messages also decreases the convenience of electronic mall and createsa risk that wanted electronic mail messages, both commercial and noncommercial, will be lost,overlooked, or discarded amidst the larger volume of unwanted messages, thus reducing thereliability and usefulness of electronic mail to the recipient. Some commercial electronic mailcontains material that many recipients may consider vulgar or pornographic in nature.
The growth in unsolicited commercial electronic mail imposes significant monetary costson providers of Internet access services, businesses, and educational and nonprofit institutionsthat carry and receive such mail, as there is a finite volume of mail that such providers,businesses, and institutions can handle without further investment in infrastructure. Manysenders of unsolicited commercial electronic mail purposefully disguise the source of suchmall.
Many senders of unsolicited commercial electronic mall purposefully include misleadinginformation in the messages' subject lines in order to induce the recipients to view themessages. While some senders of commercial electronic mail messages provide simple andreliable ways for recipients to reject (or 'opt-out' of) receipt of commercial electronic mallfrom such senders in the future, other senders provide no such 'opt-out' mechanism, orrefuse to honor the requests of recipients not to receive electronic mail from such senders inthe future, or both.
Many senders of bulk unsolicited commercial electronic mail use computer programs togather large numbers of electronic mail addresses on an automated basis from Internetwebsites or online services where users must post their addresses in order to make full use ofthe website or service.
The problems associated with the rapid growth and abuse of unsolicited commercialelectronic mall cannot be solved by the government alone. The development and adoption oftechno-logical approaches and the pursuit of cooperative efforts with other countries will benecessary as well.
91. According to the passage, efficiency of e-mail is threatened by ______
A. heavy e-mail traffic
B. fraudulent e-mail messages
C. large volume of messages
D. increasing amount of unwanted e-mail
92. Which of the following is NOT true about unwanted e-mail?
A. It costs money to receive them.
B. It's free to store them.
C. It takes time to access them.
D. It takes time to throw them away.
93. Unwanted e-mail may ______
A. cause companies to fail in business
B. cause wanted e-mail messages to lose
C. damage the credit of a company
D. do good to a small company
94. "Pornographic" in Paragraph 3 probably means ______
A. decent B. instructional
C. sexual D. commercial
95. What does unwanted e-mail messages do to the providers of the Internet services?
A. Raising their cost.
B. Raising the Internet speed.
C. Improving their business.
D. Attracting investment.
96. "Disguise" in Paragraph 4 is closest in meaning to ______
A. reveal B. hide
C. deliver D. post
97. The word "induce" in Paragraph 5 is closest in meaning to ______
A. cheat B. introduce
C. provide D. harm
98. "Opt-out" mechanism is probably ______
A. a machine that can be attached to your computer
B. a button that you can make a choice to read or not to read
C. a software that you can play a computer game
D. an e-mail that says some good words to you
99. It can be inferred from Paragraph 6 that bulk unsolicited commercial e-mail willprobably spread ______
A. harmful virus B. unpleasant news
C. advertisements D. adult jokes
100. The unwanted e-mail problem can be solved if ______
A. the government takes action
B. a new technology is adopted
C. more people are aware of the problem
D. joint efforts are made and new technology is used
Section 3: Cloze Test (20 points)
In the following passage, there are 20 blanks representing words that are missing from thecontext. You are to put back in each of the blanks the missing word. Write your answers onthe ANSWER SHEET. The time for this section is 20 minutes.
Insurance is the sharing of (1) . Nearly everyone is exposed (2) risk of some sort. Thehouse owner, for example, knows that his (3) can be damaged by fire; the ship owner knowsthat his vessel may be lost at sea; the breadwinner knows that he may die by (4) and (5) hisfamily in poverty. On the other hand, not every house is damaged by fire or every vessel lostat sea. ff these persons each put a (6) sum of money into a pool, there will be enough to (7)the needs of the few who do suffer (8) , In other words the losses of the few are met from thecontributions of the (9) . This is the basis of (10) . Those who pay the contributions are knownas (11) and those who administer the pool of the contributions as insurer.
The (12) for an insurance naturally depends on how the risk is to happen as suggested(13) past experience, ff the companies fix their premiums too (14) , there will be morecompetition in their branch of insurance and they may lose (15) . On the other hand, if theymake the premiums too low, they will not have (16) and may even have to drop out (17)business. So the ordinary forces of supply and (18) keep premiums at a proper (19) to bothinsurers and those who (20) insurance.
