(B) Conclusions
1. B 2. D 3. A 4. C 5. C

Just as most of us were finally beginning to grasp the Y2K problem, the confusion that may follow a computer's failure to read zero-zero as the year 2000. Along comes September 9th, 1999.

Some older computers, we were told, might read 9-9-99 as a kind of shorthand used to mark the end of a program and shut something down! Like the northwest electric grid of the Bonneville Power Administration.

That got everyone's attention focused on the last big nationwide power company readiness drill for the year two thousand.

Here in Washington State, and practically everywhere else in the United States and Canada, September 9th arrived without a hitch.

At least not a computer hitch. But there was a telephone call that threatened BPA's power grid, one of the biggest in the country. The call came from someone who persuaded someone else to throw some switches. However, an alert operator rerouted power and quickly fixed the problem.

Judi Johnson is a Bonneville Power Administrator; "There are people who would like Y2K to be a real event."

After a tour of BPA's control center, energy secretary Bill Richardson declared it and the nation almost ready for New Year's Day, 2000. He says, "I can report today that Bonneville is Y2K ready, and I have had reports from power companies all over the country that they have all passed with flying colors."

The secretary acknowledged that 9-9-99 was never a serious concern but a way to focus on 1-1-2000.

In the end, the energy secretary said, it was not so much a test of Y2K readiness, as it was a show of confidence in the nation's electric companies even though, he acknowledged, one percent is still not Y2K compliant.