Part I Reading Comprehension Section A (15 marks) In this section, there is one passage followed by five questions. For each question, there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You should decide on the best choice, and then mark the corresponding letter on the answer sheet with a single line through the centre. Questions 1 to 5 are based on the following passage. When e-mail first came into general use about fifteen years ago, there was a lot of talk about the imminent arrival of the paperless office. However, it seems that e-mail has yet to revolutionise office communication. According to communications analyst Richard Metcalf, some offices have actually seen an increase in paper as a result of e -mail. "Information in the form of e-mail messages now floods our computer screens. These messages can be sent so quickly that memos tend to be distributed in the hundreds. For those secretaries whose bosses ask them to print out all their e -mails and leave them in their in-trays, this means using up a great deal of paper every month," Metcalf says. Metcalf has found that because some e-mails get lost in cyberspace, PAs are increasingly likely to be asked by clients and colleagues to send all important documents both bye-mail and by fax or "snail mail" - through the post. This highlights a further potential problem with e-mail in today's offices - it is taking up time rather than saving it. "With e-mail, communication is much easier, but there is also more room for misunderstandings," says psychologist Dr David Lewis. Generally, much less care is taken with e -mails than with letters or faxes and the sender will probably print the document and reread it before putting it in an envelope or sending it by fax. More worrying is still the increasing misuse of e-mail for sending "flame-mail" - abusive or inappropriate e-mail messages. Recent research in several companies suggests that aggressive communications like this are on the increase. E-mail has become the perfect medium for expressing workplace frustration because it is so instant. E-mail can also be a problem in other ways. Staff all too often make the mistake of thinking that the contents of an e-mail, like things said over the phone, are private and not permanent. But it is not only possible for an employer to read all your e-mails, it is also perfectly legal. E-mail messages can be traced back to their origin for a period of at least two years, so you might want to rethink e -mailing your frustrations about your job to your friends. The advice is to keep personal e-mails out of the office. It goes without saying that e-mail exists to make life easier, and if used correctly, it is an invaluable tool for businesses of all sizes. But perhaps, for the time being, the fact that in the business world 70 percent of all documents are still in paper form is not such a bad thing after all. 46. Why has the promise of the paperless office not come true in many offices?