On the evening of his 18 th birthday, a teenager from a tiny village in northern Germany clicked ‘send’ on his computers in hospitals and blanks in Hong Kong, china had crashed, and trains in Australia and the USA and stopped.
In court a few months later, the teenager, Sven Jaschan, was charged with criminal damage. He was found guilty of putting the terrible ‘Sasser’ computer virus on the internet and received a 21-month suspended sentence. He avoided prison because he was only eighteen when he committed the crime. The virus infected millions of computer systems across the world, and caused millions of dollars damage.
Sven admitted his guilt to the detectives who came to his home. He had spent an enormous amount of time creating the Sasser virus on the computer in his bedroom. He often spent ten hours a day in front of his computer but his parents hadn't known what he was doing at the time.
When he released the virus on the internet, he didn't realize it would cause so much damage. He was just delighted that in had worked. ‘I felt as if I had written a first-class essay’, said Sven. ‘I told my classmates——they thought it was terrific.’ But his feelings changed very quickly. He was terrified when he saw a TV news report about the virus and damage it had caused.
Detectives arrested Sven after one of his classmates contacted Microsoft and told them about him. Microsoft had offered a $250,000 reward for information about the virus. However, Sven's teachers at school were astonished that Sven had created the virus. They said that he wasn't a brilliant computer student. ‘there are others in the class who are better than him,’ one teacher said!
While he was waiting for his waiting for his trial to start, Sven left school and started work. He now works for a computer company, making ‘firewalls’ – vital pieces of software that protect computers from viruses!
Questions 31-32: read the questions and the four choices marked A, B, C and D, and decide which is the best choice according to the passage.
Question 33-35: read the passage, and then complete the following statements in no more than four words for each blanks.
What was Sven Jaschan's crime?
根据第二段第二句可知“人们发现他把计算机病毒放在了网上，所以获刑21个月。”
Why wasn't Sven sent to prison?
第二段中第三句指出“当时他才18岁，所以免刑了。”
When Sven released the virus on the internet, he was at first ________, then frightened.
The police caught Sven using information given to Microsoft by ________.
In the last paragraph, the word meaning ‘very important’ is ________.