Office Email Privacy

Answer choices

1. A

   Too Strong: will need to scramble6% picked this

   Until the legal questions surrounding the privacy of electronic mail in both the public and private sectors have been resolved, office workers will need

   The main clause of this answer is "office workers will need to scramble their emails". That's a poor match for what we were looking for, which was more like: "this whole issue of email privacy is a thorny modern issue with no easy answers". The author says in the last sentence that "the only solution may be for users to scramble their own messages". Not only is this line more tenuous than this answer: "the only solution is for users to scramble their messages", the author also wasn't saying in that line that all office workers should scramble their messages. It was more like, "there's no real guarantee that you have privacy, so if you want to know your email won't be read by others, you may need to scramble your messages."

   6%
2. B

   Out of Scope: best resolved2% picked this

   The legal questions surrounding the privacy of electronic mail in the workplace can best be resolved by treating such communications as if they were

   This answer also implies that the author offered an answer / solution to this tough, complicated problem. If we treated email privacy like private conversations or telephone calls, that would mean that it would be illegal in many cases for an employer to eavesdrop, even if the company owns the email system. Did this author advocate that it should be illegal for companies to "eavesdrop" emails on company-owned email systems? No, the author says in the 3rd paragraph that a boss's right to eavesdrop on a company owned computer system was upheld by courts and in the 4th paragraph that courts have ruled that if employees haven't been given a 'reasonable expectation' of privacy when they send messages, then those messages shouldn't be considered private. The author doesn't react to either of these things by saying, "This is wrong. This should be changed."

   2%
3. C

   Too Strong: must Wrong Emphasis4% picked this

   Any attempt to resolve the legal questions surrounding the privacy of electronic mail in the workplace must take into account the essential

   The main clause here is, "Attempt to solve the legal issues of email privacy must take into account the difference between public and private". That was the author's #1 thing? She wanted to make sure above all else that as people try to solve this problem they make sure to factor in that public/private distinction? There's nothing we can point to in the passage where the author is emphasizing / recommending / suggesting that lawmakers make sure to account for this distinction. This answer is just trying to bait us by using the words public and private because the author explored how this debate manifests in public settings as well as in private settings.

   4%
4. D

   Correct89% picked this

   At present, in both the public and private sectors, there seem to be no clear general answers to the legal questions surrounding the privacy

   Why this is right

   This answer, more than any other one, resembles our thesis at the end of paragraph 1. The author is highlighting a problem without any clear solution, a debate without any clear correct answer. The author sets us up by saying, "This email privacy thing has emerged as one of the more complicated legal issues of our modern age", and concludes by saying, "The only solution may be X; unfortunately, X sucks as a solution." So that leaves us with a main point that is basically just, "I'm going to inform you about a tricky legal matter that people are currently struggling with".

   Skill tested: Main Point · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

   89%
5. E

   Out of Scope: best resolved0% picked this

   The legal questions surrounding the privacy of electronic mail in the workplace can best be resolved by allowing supervisors in public-sector but not private-sector

   This answer also implies that the author offered an answer / solution to this tough, complicated problem. If we followed the advice in this answer, that would mean that it would be illegal for a private employer to eavesdrop, even if the company owns the email system. Did this author advocate that it should be illegal for companies to "eavesdrop" emails on company-owned email systems? No, the author says in the 3rd paragraph that a boss's right to eavesdrop on a company owned computer system was upheld by courts and in the 4th paragraph that courts have ruled that if employees haven't been given a 'reasonable expectation' of privacy when they send messages, then those messages shouldn't be considered private. The author doesn't react to either of these things by saying, "This is wrong. This should be changed."

   0%