You receive an urgent email appearing to be from your bank saying your account will be suspended in 24 hours unless you click the link provided. What is the safest response?
AClick the link quickly — the urgency suggests it is probably real
BReply to the email asking whether it is legitimate
CNavigate directly to your bank's website by typing the address yourself, then check your account there
DDelete the email and change your password using the link provided
Legitimate institutions almost never require you to act on account issues through unsolicited email links. The urgency is a deliberate psychological technique designed to make you act before you think. The safe response is to go directly to the organization's real website — through an address you look up yourself, not one in the message — to check whether the alert is genuine. Replying to a phishing email also confirms your address is active, which invites further attempts.
Question 2 Multiple Choice
A student posts a photo to their 'friends only' social media account. The photo was taken near their home and shows a recognizable street in the background. What is the most accurate safety assessment?
AFully safe — 'friends only' settings prevent strangers from seeing it
BSafe — location only matters if the post explicitly names an address
CNot fully safe — private settings can be overridden by screenshots, account compromises, or platform changes, and the background reveals location without an explicit label
DNot safe — all photos should be deleted immediately after posting
The internet is public by default — 'private' settings are not guarantees. A friend's account can be hacked, platforms change privacy policies, and screenshots bypass all settings instantly. A photo showing recognizable landmarks near your home gives away your location even without any caption. The guiding rule is: assume anything you post can reach anyone.
Question 3 True / False
If you delete a post from your social media account, it is permanently gone and can seldom be seen by anyone.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: False
Deleting a post from your profile does not guarantee it is gone. Screenshots may have already been taken and reshared. Platform servers may retain cached copies. Search engines may have indexed it. Other users may have already saved or reposted the content. This is why 'think before you post' matters more than the ability to delete — the first publication is the one that counts.
Question 4 True / False
If an online conversation makes you feel uncomfortable or unsafe, trusting that instinct and telling a trusted adult is an appropriate response.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: True
Online interactions carry the same real-world stakes as in-person ones. Discomfort is a signal worth taking seriously — someone requesting personal information, pressuring you for images, or making you feel unsafe is a real problem regardless of the medium. Telling a trusted adult, blocking accounts, and reporting to platforms are all appropriate responses. The fact that something happens online does not make it less serious or less real.
Question 5 Short Answer
Why do messages that create urgency — 'your account will be suspended' or 'you've won a prize' — make people more likely to fall for scams?
Think about your answer, then reveal below.
Model answer: Urgency is engineered to bypass careful judgment. When people feel they must act immediately, they skip the verification steps they would normally take — checking whether the sender is real, whether the URL matches the organization, or whether the request is unusual. Scammers exploit this deliberately. Legitimate companies rarely require you to act within hours on unsolicited messages, and any real emergency can always be verified by contacting the institution directly through a number or URL you find yourself.
The key insight is that artificial urgency works against deliberate thinking. Pausing to verify a suspicious message costs nothing if the message is real; it prevents significant harm if the message is a scam. The deliberate slowdown is the protection.