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  27
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 is the message the author intends to convey?
选项 A、Putting things alphabetically may lead to unintentional bias.
B、VIPs in the western world gain a great deal from alphabetism.
C、People with surnames beginning with N to Z are often ill-treated.
D、The campaign to eliminate alphabetism still has a long way to go.
答案 A
解析 B)在第3段中有所提及，但并非作者想要表达的主题；原文仅论述了名字首字母靠后的人有可能遭到无意间的歧视，而非因此总被恶劣地对待，故C)错误。本文主要是通过举例，论证字母排序可能造成的不良影响，并非发起消除字母排序的运动，因此D)与原文不符。A)意为“按字母排序会在无意间导致偏见”，综合原文主旨，A)与其意思相符，故为答案。
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