2004年Text 2

　　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 Zoeuml; 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, Chrétien 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.

49. What does the author mean by "most people are literally having a ZZZ" (Lines 2-3， Paragraph 5)?
[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

[解題思路]

　　文章第五段舉了一個例子，"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"（大學畢業典禮上，姓氏以A、B、C打頭的人自豪地受到了嘉獎，等輪到Zysman的時候，大多數人其實已經在打瞌睡了），說明由于報了太多名字，等輪到那些名字靠后的學生上臺時，臺下的觀眾早已失去興趣，不由地開始打盹。稍微熟悉一點英語知識的人都知道ZZZ是表示打盹的常見符號，文章巧妙地把這個符號與以Z字母開頭的學生上臺聯系起來，頗為生動有趣。

[題目譯文]

作者所謂的"most people are literally having a ZZZ"（第三段第二行）是什么意思？
[A] 他們變得不耐煩了
[B] 他們在呼呼大睡
[C] 他們感覺自己受到了侮辱
[D] 他們在做猜詞游戲