2. 职称英语
  3. Over the past century, all kinds of unfairness and discrimination have been

Over the past century, all kinds of unfairness and discrimination have been

游客2024-02-10  26
问题     Over the past century, all kinds of unfairness and discrimination have been condemned or made illegal. But one insidious(阴险的)form continues to thrive: alphabetism. This, for those as yet unaware of such a disadvantage, refers to discrimination against those whose surnames begin with a letter in the lower half of the alphabet.
    It has long been known that a taxi firm called AAAA Cars has a big advantage over Zodiac Cars when customers thumb through their phone directories. Less well known is the advantage that Adam Abbott has in life over Zoe Zysman. English names are fairly evenly spread between the halves of the alphabet. Yet a suspiciously large number of top people have surnames beginning with letters between A and K.
    Thus the American president and vice-president have surnames starting with B and C respectively; and 26 of George Bush’s predecessors(including his father)had surnames in the first half of the alphabet against just 16 in the second half. Even more striking, six of the seven heads of government of the G7 rich countries are alphabetically advantaged(Berlusconi, Blair, Bush, Chirac, Chretien and Koizumi). The world’s three top central bankers(Greenspan, Duisenberg and Hayami)are all close to the top of the alphabet, even if one of them really uses Japanese characters, as are the world’s five richest men(Gates, Buffett, Allen, Ellison and Albrecht).
    Can this merely be coincidence? One theory, dreamt up in all the spare time enjoyed by the alphabetically disadvantaged, is that the rot sets in early. At the start of the first year in infant school, teachers seat pupils alphabetically from the front, to make it easier to remember their names. So short-sighted Zysman junior gets stuck in the back row, and is rarely asked the improving questions posed by those insensitive teachers. At the time the alphabetically disadvantaged may think they have had a lucky escape. Yet the result may be worse qualifications, because they get less individual attention, as well as less confidence in speaking publicly.
    The humiliation continues. At university graduation ceremonies, the ABCs proudly get their awards first; by the time they reach the Zysmans most people are literally having a ZZZ. Shortlists for job interviews, election ballot papers, lists of conference speakers and attendees: all tend to be drawn up alphabetically, and their recipients lose interest as they plough through them. [br] What does the author mean by "most people are literally having a ZZZ"(Line 2, Para. 5)?
选项 A、They are getting impatient.
B、They are feeling humiliated.
C、They are busy with word puzzles.
D、They are noisily dozing off.
答案 D
解析 ZZZ不是一个单词，但是经常用在漫画里，表示人在酣睡，因此第5段第2句的意思是，名字首字母排在前面的学生自豪地首先上台领取毕业证书，而轮到Zysmans的时候，大多数人早已等得犯困了。D)意为“他们呼呼地打起瞌睡”，与原文意思相符，故为答案。第5段首句中的humiliation一词只是表明现象的不公，因此B)与原文意思不符；A)和C)在原文均未提及。
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