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  3. Alphabetism: An Insidious Form of Discrimination Over the past century, all kinds of unfairness and discrimination have been

Alphabetism: An Insidious Form of Discrimination Over the past century, all kinds of unfairness and discrimination have been

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问题                 Alphabetism: An Insidious Form of Discrimination
    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 shortsighted 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 推理判断题。从本题的提问方式很容易判断出这是一道推断题，其中AAAA cars和Zodiac cars是作者为了阐述某种观点而举的例子。通过这两个关键词组定位至本文第二段，因为这部分内容是对前面观点的解释说明，所以答案在第一段。第一段第二句指出社会上存在一种潜在的不公正现象，即姓氏首字母排序。由此可知第二段中提到的AAAA cars和Zodiac cars的例子是对该观点的阐释，A“一种被忽视的不平等现象"是对原文oneinsidious form的同义转述。本文第一段开篇引题，提出了本文讨论的话题，即按照姓氏首字母排序所带来的歧视。文章第二段中作者举一个很熟悉的例子来证明此观点。第二段前两句主要说明首字母排在字母表前面的出租车公司往往比排在字母表后面的公司占优势。后两句通过“杰出人物的姓氏多排在字母表的前半部分”这一现象证明姓氏排序不平等现象的存在。本题四个选项中的最后一个单词意思非常接近，均有“不公平，歧视”的意思。因此，通过选项的核心词并不能够得出正确答案。文章第一段第二句中的But oneinsidious(隐藏的，潜在的)form，第三句中的yet unaware of(还没意识到)such a disadvantage以及第二段第二句中的less well known(不太为人所知)都与A选项中的overlooked(被人忽视的)意思相近。B“一种明显的偏见”与第一段前两句意思相反，是针对句中insidious(隐藏的，潜在的)设计的干扰项。此处bias(偏见)与文中unfairness(不公正)和discrimination(歧视)意思相近，但conspicuous(明显的)与文中insidious意思相反，故不正确。C“一种个人偏见”及D“一种品牌歧视”在文中均没有提及。出题者只是将句中的关键词unfairness和discrimination借过来，稍加变化，然后添加内容臆造出两个选项。
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