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  3. Over the past century, all kinds of unfairness and discrimination have been condemned or made illegal. But one insidious form co

Over the past century, all kinds of unfairness and discrimination have been condemned or made illegal. But one insidious form co

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问题     Over the past century, all kinds of unfairness and discrimination have been condemned or made illegal. But one insidious 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.
What does the author intend to illustrate with AAAA cars and Zodiac cars?
选项 A、A kind of overlooked inequality.
B、A type of conspicuous bias.
C、A type of personal prejudice.
D、A kind of brand discrimination.
答案A
解析 这是一道结构题。题干中的信号词为AAAA cars和Zodiac，出自于文章第二段第一句话。文章第一段指出：一种隐秘的不公平和歧视继续盛行，也就是以字母的先后排顺序。第二段指出：人们早就知道，当乘客通过电话本叫出租车时，一家名为“AAAA汽车”的出租车公司所具有的优势就比一家名为Zodiac的汽车公司大；人们不太知晓的是这样的有利条件——在生活中，Adam Abbott比ZoeZysman有优势。这说明，作者利用AAAA cars和Zodiac汽车公司是为了举例说明人们忽视了一种隐秘的不公平和歧视。A说“一种被人们忽视的不平等”，这与作者的目的符合。B和D不是作者的目的。文中没有说明隐秘的不公平和歧视是个人偏见，所以C不是作者的目的。
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