This is a poor question not because of the question itself, but because of the distractors. While it is correct that you JUST need a login to SQL server, you are added to master because of the default value of @defdb in sp_addlogin. At least that's the way I was thinking at the time... Am I off-base? Are you actually implicitly granted permission to master through the public role? It would seem so to me, and I did test this with positive results. Oh, also, I did test-taking error # 1 on this, anyhow: I had A selected, and then thought about it too much...