2024年6月7日发(作者：)

2004年

Text 1

①Hunting for a job late last year, lawyer Gant Redmon stumbled across CareerBuilder, a job database

on the Internet. ②He searched it with no success but was attracted by the site's“personal search agent”. ③

It's an interactive feature that lets visitors key in job criteria such as location, title, and salary, then E-mails

them when a matching position is posted in the database. ④Redmon chose the keywords legal, intellectual

property, and Washington, D.C. ⑤Three weeks later, he got his first notification of an opening. ⑥“I struck

gold,”says Redmon, who E-mailed his resume to the employer and won a position as in-house counsel for a

company.

①With thousands of career-related sites on the Internet, finding promising openings can be

time-consuming and inefficient. ②Search agents reduce the need for repeated visits to the databases. ③But

although a search agent worked for Redmon, career experts see drawbacks. ④Narrowing your criteria, for

example, may work against you:“Every time you answer a question you eliminate a possibility,”says one

expert.

①For any job search, you should start with a narrow concept—what you think you want to do—then

broaden it. ②“None of these programs do that,”says another expert. ③“There's no career counseling

implicit in all of this.”④Instead, the best strategy is to use the agent as a kind of tip service to keep abreast of

jobs in a particular database; when you get E-mail, consider it a reminder to check the database again. ⑤“I

would not rely on agents for finding everything that is added to a database that might interest me,”says the

author of a job-searching guide.

①Some sites design their agents to tempt job hunters to return. ②When CareerSite's agent sends out

messages to those who have signed up for its service, for example, it includes only three potential jobs—

those it considers the best matches. ③ There may be more matches in the database; job hunters will have to

visit the site again to find them—and they do. ④“On the day after we send our messages, we see a sharp

increase in our traffic,”says Seth Peets, vice president of marketing for CareerSite.

①Even those who aren't hunting for jobs may find search agents worthwhile. ②Some use them to keep

a close watch on the demand for their line of work or gather information on compensation to arm themselves

when negotiating for a raise. ③Although happily employed, Redmon maintains his agent at CareerBuilder.

④“You always keep your eyes open,”he says. ⑤Working with a personal search agent means having

another set of eyes looking out for you.

2004年

did Redmon find his job?

[A] By searching openings in a job database.

[B] By posting a matching position in a database.

[C] By using a special service of a database.

[D] By E-mailing his resume to a database.

of the following can be a disadvantage of search agents?

[A] Lack of counseling.

[B] Limited number of visits.

[C] Lower efficiency.

[D] Fewer successful matches.

expression“tip service”(Line 3, Paragraph 3) most probably means __________.

[A] advisory

[B] compensation

[C] interaction

[D] reminder

does CareerSite's agent offer each job hunter only three job options?

[A] To focus on better job matches.

[B] To attract more returning visits.

[C] To reserve space for more messages.

[D] To increase the rate of success.

of the following is true according to the text?

[A] Personal search agents are indispensable to job-hunters.

[B] Some sites keep E-mailing job seekers to trace their demands.

[C] Personal search agents are also helpful to those already employed.

[D] Some agents stop sending information to people once they are employed.

2004年

Text 2

①Over the past century, all kinds of unfairness and discrimination have been condemned or made

illegal. ②But one insidious form continues to thrive: alphabetism. ③This, 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.

①It 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. ②Less well known is the advantage that Adam Abbott has

in life over Zoë Zysman. ③English names are fairly evenly spread between the halves of the alphabet. ④

Yet a suspiciously large number of top people have surnames beginning with letters between A and K.

①Thus 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. ②Even more striking, six of the seven heads of government of the G7 rich

countries are alphabetically advantaged (Berlusconi, Blair, Bush, Chirac, Chretien and Koizumi). ③The

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. ④As are the world's five richest men (Gates, Buffett,

Allen, Ellison and Albrecht).

①Can this merely be coincidence? ②One theory, dreamt up in all the spare time enjoyed by the

alphabetically disadvantaged, is that the rot sets in early. ③At the start of the first year in infant school,

teachers seat pupils alphabetically from the front, to make it easier to remember their names. ④So

short-sighted Zysman junior gets stuck in the back row, and is rarely asked the improving questions posed by

those insensitive teachers. ⑤At the time the alphabetically disadvantaged may think they have had a lucky

escape. ⑥Yet the result may be worse qualifications, because they get less individual attention, as well as

less confidence in speaking publicly.

①The humiliation continues. ②At university graduation ceremonies, the ABCs proudly get their

awards first; by the time they reach the Zysmans most people are literally having a ZZZ. ③Shortlists 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.

2004年

does the author intend to illustrate with AAAA 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.

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 Zo? Zysman.

[C] Customers often pay a lot of attention to companies' names.

[D] Some form of discrimination is too subtle to recognize.

4th paragraph suggests that __________.

[A] questions are often put to the more intelligent students

[B] alphabetically disadvantaged students often escape from class

[C] teachers should pay attention to all of their students

[D] students should be seated according to their eyesight

does the author mean by“most people are literally having a ZZZ”(Line 2, 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.

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.