2. 外语
  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, Ellishon 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 alphabatically 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 mean by "most people are literally having a ZZZ" (Line 2, Para. 5)?
选项 A、They are getting impatient.
B、They are noisily dozing off.
C、They are feeling humiliated.
D、They are busy with word puzzles.
答案B
解析 这是一道词汇语义题。在英文中，ZZZ常被用来描述人打瞌睡时发出的声音；在图画中也是刻画人打呼噜的符号。因此，该句句意为选项B“他们打起瞌睡来了”。选项A干扰性很强。不过这里指学生毕业典礼上，按照学生姓氏字母的顺序发毕业证，学生人数很多，轮到后面的学生，有的人就打瞌睡了。这里不是强调耐心，而是强调名单的冗长和乏味，所以，选项B是正确答案。
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