You receive an email with the display name 'Your Bank' asking you to click a link to verify your account. What should you check before clicking?
AThe subject line, to see if it mentions your account number
BThe actual email address the message was sent from, not just the display name shown
CWhether the email is in your inbox rather than your Spam folder
DHow long the link is — longer links are generally safer than short ones
The display name ('Your Bank') is just text anyone can type — it tells you nothing about where the email actually came from. The real sender's email address (visible by clicking on or hovering over the sender name) is what reveals the true origin. A message claiming to be from a bank but arriving from a random address like [email protected] is almost certainly a scam. Checking the actual address, not the display name, is the single most important email safety habit.
Question 2 Multiple Choice
You are expecting an important email from a friend but can't find it in your inbox. Where else should you look?
AThe Sent folder, which stores copies of messages you have received
BThe Spam or Junk folder, where email services sometimes automatically sort legitimate messages
CYour web browser's download folder, where email attachments are stored
DYou cannot find it — emails are either in the inbox or permanently lost
Email services automatically filter incoming messages they suspect are spam or advertising into Spam or Junk folders. Legitimate messages sometimes get caught by these filters incorrectly. If you're expecting something that hasn't appeared in your inbox, checking the Spam/Junk folder is the first place to look. The Sent folder contains messages you sent — not messages you received.
Question 3 True / False
If an email's display name shows 'Amazon', the message was definitely sent from Amazon's official email servers.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: False
Display names are freely set by whoever sends the email — they can be anything. This is called spoofing: a scammer can make an email display as 'Amazon', 'PayPal', or 'Your Bank' while the actual sending address is completely unrelated. The only reliable indicator of the true sender is the actual email address, not the display name. This is why checking the real address before clicking links is so important.
Question 4 True / False
In a typical email inbox list view, each row shows the sender, the subject line, and when the message arrived.
TTrue
FFalse
Answer: True
The inbox is a list where each row is one message, and the three key pieces of information shown at a glance are: who sent it (sender), what it's about (subject line), and when it arrived (date/time). Unread messages are often bolded or highlighted. Clicking a row opens the full message. This is the same 'click to go deeper' navigation pattern used in web browsers.
Question 5 Short Answer
What is email spoofing, and why does it matter when deciding whether to click a link in an email?
Think about your answer, then reveal below.
Model answer: Spoofing is when someone sends an email that displays a trusted name (like 'PayPal' or 'Your Bank') as the sender, while the actual email address the message came from belongs to someone completely different. The display name is just text — anyone can type anything. The real email address, visible by examining the sender details, reveals the true origin. This matters because scammers use spoofing to make fake emails look like they came from trusted sources, tricking people into clicking malicious links or revealing personal information. Checking the actual address — not just the display name — is what catches these fakes.
Understanding spoofing changes how you read emails fundamentally: you can no longer trust the name you see. The practical skill is knowing where to look (the actual email address behind the display name) and what red flags to notice (an address that doesn't match the organization it claims to be from).