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.

46. What does the author intend to illustrate with AAA A cars and Zodiac cars？
[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

[解題思路]

AAAA和Zodiac汽車出租公司這個例子出現在文章的第二段，是說人們平時通過查電話號碼簿叫出租車的時候，名字以A開頭的公司比名字以Z開頭的公司遠遠要有優勢，這就是第一段中提到的"discrimination of alphabetism"（字母表主義）。同時該段明確指出這種歧視一一直沒有受到人們的注意，也就是被忽視。因此本題題干的例子是用來解釋說明第一段提出的文章中心思想，因此正確答案為A，其中overlooked對應于第一段第三句的unaware of ， 而inequality對應于該段第一句的unfairness 和discrimination。B、C選項中bias, prejudice都是discrimination的同義詞，但conspicuous與原文正好相反，personal 也與原文不符合。D選項brand（商標）也沒有在文中提到。本題的關鍵是抓住區分幾個修飾詞的含義。

[題目譯文]

作者用AAAA和Zodiac汽車出租公司的例子是想要說明什么？
[A] 一種被忽視的不平等
[B] 一種明顯的歧視
[C] 一種個人偏見
[D] 一種品牌偏見

50. Which of the following is true according to the text?
[A] People with surnames beginning with N to Z are often ill-treated.
[B] VIPs in the Western world gain a great deal from alphabetism.
[C] The campaign to eliminate alphabetism still has a long way to go.
[D] Putting things alphabetically may lead to unintentional bias.

[答案] D

[解題思路]

判斷這種正誤題需要與原文逐項對應信息。A選項ill-treated（受虐待）不符合原文，文章只談及歧視，但人們并無受虐待，因此A選項錯誤。B選項的主語VIP指的是所有的大人物，但文章中雖舉例說一部分大人物姓名排在字母表的前一半，卻并沒有如此絕對的表述，因此B選項錯誤。C選項在文中并沒有提及。D選項總結了全文的觀點，是正確選項，說明按字母排序這種看似公平的方法實際上卻導致了無意（unintentional）的歧視。

[題目譯文]

下面哪項符合文意？
[A] 那些姓氏以N-Z字母靠頭的人們經常受到不好的待遇。
[B] 西方國家中的一些重要人物從字母排序主義中獲益頗多
[C] 消除字母排序主義的運動還有很長的路要走
[D] 按照字母排序可能在無意中造成了偏見。

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