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 can we infer from the first three paragraphs?
选项 A、In both East and West, names are essential to success.
B、The alphabet is to blame for the failure of Zoe Zysman.
C、Customers often pay a lot of attention to companies’ names.
D、Some form of discrimination is too subtle to recognize.
答案D
解析 这是一道推理判断题。通读前三段可知，选项A“无论东方还是西方，名字对成功至关重要”，文章没有提到，也没有可以得出此结论的线索；选项B“Zoe Zysman的失败要责怪字母表”，这与文章的意思相悖，文章只是讲“Adam Abbott在生活中比Zoe Zysman拥有优势”，不能推断出选项B的内容；选项C“顾客通常非常注意公司的名字”，文章只是说，人们在翻阅电话薄的时候，字母靠前的公司占优势，得不出顾客非常注意公司的名字的结论。以上选项都不是答案。根据文章第一段所讲“然而，有一种歧视却潜伏下来，继续蔓延，那就
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