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, Chre tien 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.

单选题 What does the author intend to illustrate with AAAA cars and Zodiac cars?

【正确答案】 A

【答案解析】解析：例证题。这两个例子所论证的观点出现在第一段。A项中的“overlooked”和第一段第三句的“unaware of”相对应。因此，A项符合题干的含义。B项与原文意思恰恰相反，原文的意思是这种偏见往往被人们所忽视。C项错误，因为全文讨论的是社会性的大众问题，即大家都忽视这种不平等的现象，而不是个人的偏见。D项本身是例证，不是作者论证的观点。换言之，此项不能表达出作者真正的意图。

单选题 What can we infer from the first three paragraphs?

【正确答案】 D

【答案解析】解析：推断题。首先，作者在整篇文章中所体现的态度是否定和批判的。其次，篇章的关键词是歧视“discrimination”。第三，第一段中出现了“insidious”一词，第二段中出现了“has longbeen known”的表达，都说明了这种现象被人们忽视是常见的。第三段也讲述了国家首脑之类的姓名也大多靠前，作者在前三段中想要表述的是一种歧视，然而这种歧视并不引人注意，因此作者才要写这篇文章来进行阐述。D项是根据原文可以得出的推理，故正确。A项太过绝对。B项属于过度推断。C项过于肤浅。