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.

47. What can we infer from the first three paragraphs?

[A] In both East and West, names are essential to success.
　　[B] The alphabet is to blame for the failure of Zoë Zysman.
　　[C] Customers often pay a lot of attention to companies’ names.
　　[D] Some form of discrimination is too subtle to recognize.

48. The 4th paragraph suggests that

[A] questions are often put to the more intelligent students.
　　[B] alphabetically disadvantaged students often escape form class.
　　[C] teachers should pay attention to all of their students.
　　[D] students should be seated according to their eyesight.

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.

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.

分析：
　　这是一篇议论文，讨论字母主义这一歧视现象。
　　第一段揭示字母主义这一隐藏的歧视现象。
　　第二段和第三段例释这种现象的广泛存在。
　　第四和第五段指出，这种现象不是巧合，也不是个别现象。文章引介一个理论，认为这种现象起始于幼时的学校教育。

参考译文：
　　过去一百年中，各种不公正和歧视要么遭到谴责，要么被视为非法，(46)然而，有一种歧视却潜伏下来，继续蔓延，那就是：字母主义。许多人迄今还了解这种现象，它指的是姓氏首字母位于字母表下半部分的人们所遭受的歧视。
众所周知，当顾客翻寻电话号码簿的时候，名为AAAA的出租车公司就比名叫Zodiac的公司占有优势。有一点还不太为人所知，Adam Abbott在生活中比Zoe Zysman拥有优势。英文名在字母表中前后分部均匀，但许多上层人士的姓的首字母都在A至K之间，令人感到离奇。
　　因此，美国总统和付总统的姓分别为B和C；乔治.布什的前任中（包括其父）有26位的姓在字母表的上半部，只有16位在字母表的下半部。更令人称奇的是，七大工业国的七位首脑中有六位的姓在字母表上位列上部（Berlusconi, Blair, Bush, Chirac, Chretien, Koizumi）。世界三大央行行长（Greenspan, Duisenberg, Hayami）也是如此，即使其中一位用的是日本字。世界五位首富（Gates, Buffett, Allen, Ellison, Albrecht）也是一样。
　　这难道只是一个巧合？有一种理论（那些字母表上列位不佳者闲时构幻出来的）认为情况从一开始就很糟。(48)早在幼儿学校的第一年，老师就按字母顺序给学生排座位，以便能记住孩子们的名字，因此，近视眼小日斯曼（Zysman junior）就永远坐后排，并且很少被那些粗心的教师提问，而这些提问对孩子的成长有益。当时，那些姓氏字母不佳的孩子会为逃避提问而暗自庆幸，但结果是使他们素质欠佳，因为他们得到的个人关注少，在公众场合说话也信心不足。