阅读理解
If you are anything like me, you left the theater after Sex and the City 2 and thought there ought to be a law against a looks-based culture in which the only way for 40-year-old actresses to be compensated like 40-year-old actors is to have them look and dress like the teenage daughters of 40-year-old actors.
Meet Deborah Rhode, a Stanford law professor who proposes a legal regime in which discrimination on the basis of looks is as serious as discrimination based on gender or race. In a provocative new book, The Beauty Bias, Rhode lays out the case for an America in which appearance discrimination is no longer allowed. That means Hooters can't fire its servers for being too heavy, as allegedly happened last month to a waitress in Michigan who says she received nothing but excellent reviews but weighed 132 pounds.
Rhode is at her most persuasive when arguing that in America, discrimination against unattractive women and short men is as pernicious and widespread as bias based on race, sex, age, ethnicity, religion, and disability. Rhode cites research to prove her point: 11 percent of surveyed couples say they would abort a fetus predisposed toward obesity. College students tell surveyors they'd rather have a spouse who is an embezzler, drug user, or a shoplifter than one who is obese.
And all of this is compounded by a virtually unregulated beauty and diet industry and soaring rates of elective cosmetic surgery. Rhode reminds us how Hillary Clinton and Sonia Sotomayor were savaged by the media for their looks, and says it's no surprise that Sarah Palin paid her makeup artist more than any member of her staff in her run for the vice presidency.
And the problem with making appearance discrimination illegal is that Americans just really, really like hot girls. And so long as being a hot girl is deemed a bona fide occupational qualification, there will be cocktail waitresses fired for gaining three pounds. It's not just American men who like things this way. The truth is that women feel good about competing in beauty pageants.
To put it another way, appearance bias is a massive societal problem with tangible economic costs that most of us—perhaps especially women— perpetuate each time we buy a diet pill or sneer at fat women. This doesn't mean we shouldn't work toward eradicating discrimination based on appearance. But it may mean recognizing that the law won't stop us from discriminating against the overweight, the aging, and the imperfect, so long as it's the quality we all hate most in ourselves.
Meet Deborah Rhode, a Stanford law professor who proposes a legal regime in which discrimination on the basis of looks is as serious as discrimination based on gender or race. In a provocative new book, The Beauty Bias, Rhode lays out the case for an America in which appearance discrimination is no longer allowed. That means Hooters can't fire its servers for being too heavy, as allegedly happened last month to a waitress in Michigan who says she received nothing but excellent reviews but weighed 132 pounds.
Rhode is at her most persuasive when arguing that in America, discrimination against unattractive women and short men is as pernicious and widespread as bias based on race, sex, age, ethnicity, religion, and disability. Rhode cites research to prove her point: 11 percent of surveyed couples say they would abort a fetus predisposed toward obesity. College students tell surveyors they'd rather have a spouse who is an embezzler, drug user, or a shoplifter than one who is obese.
And all of this is compounded by a virtually unregulated beauty and diet industry and soaring rates of elective cosmetic surgery. Rhode reminds us how Hillary Clinton and Sonia Sotomayor were savaged by the media for their looks, and says it's no surprise that Sarah Palin paid her makeup artist more than any member of her staff in her run for the vice presidency.
And the problem with making appearance discrimination illegal is that Americans just really, really like hot girls. And so long as being a hot girl is deemed a bona fide occupational qualification, there will be cocktail waitresses fired for gaining three pounds. It's not just American men who like things this way. The truth is that women feel good about competing in beauty pageants.
To put it another way, appearance bias is a massive societal problem with tangible economic costs that most of us—perhaps especially women— perpetuate each time we buy a diet pill or sneer at fat women. This doesn't mean we shouldn't work toward eradicating discrimination based on appearance. But it may mean recognizing that the law won't stop us from discriminating against the overweight, the aging, and the imperfect, so long as it's the quality we all hate most in ourselves.
单选题
6.Which of the following is the best description of the author's emotions after watching Sex and the City 2?
【正确答案】
D
【答案解析】推断题。根据题干关键词定位至第一段。文章指出“当在电影院看完《欲望都市2》后，我们会产生制定一部法律来反对以貌取人的文化习俗的想法，因为在以貌取人的文化中，40岁的女演员如果想拿和40岁的男演员一样的酬劳，唯一的方法就是把自己装扮成40岁男演员十几岁的女儿。”很显然，作者对于影片中女演员必须打扮得年轻漂亮而感到不满，并且达到了认为应该立法禁止以貌取人的程度。因此D项正确。
单选题
7.The word "That" in Para. 2 refers to______.
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】细节题。第二段中第二句和第三句指出“在她引起争论的新书《美丽偏见》中，罗德描绘了一个不再允许相貌歧视的美国将是什么样子。这就意味着Hooters公司不能因为服务员超重就开除他们……”，第三句中的“这”显然承接的是上句的后半部分。 “一个不再允许相貌歧视的美国”与B项“视相貌歧视为非法行为之后美国的情形”是同义表述，故答案为B项。
单选题
8.Which of the followings is NOT included in Prof. Rhode's arguments?
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】细节题。本题考查的是文章中某一具体人物的观点，通过人名“罗德教授”定位到文章第二段及第三段。C项的内容出现在文中第五段首句，但并没有线索表明是罗德教授的观点，所以应该选C项。
单选题
9.It is very hard to establish a law against appearance discrimination because______.
【正确答案】
A
【答案解析】细节题。根据题干内容可以定位到原文第五段第一句“And the problem with making appearance discrimination illegal is that Americans just really，really like hot girls．”(而无法将相貌歧视视为不合法的主要问题在于美国人确实很喜欢辣妹。)再结合下文直至文章结尾对相貌歧视深层原因的分析，可以得出正确答案是A项。
单选题
10.What conclusion can be drawn from the passage?
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】推断题。从文章最后一段的最后一句话可知，相貌歧视问题的根源在于：超重、年老和不完美依然是我们自己最痛恨的缺陷，法律就无法阻止我们对这些缺陷的歧视。也就是说，只有我们自己先改变对超重、年老和不完美的看法，才有可能阻止这样的歧视。与这一表述对应的是C项。