Few beyond California’ s technology crowd recognise the name Larry Sonsini; none within its circle could fail to. For four decades he has been lawyer, adviser and friend to many prominent companies and investors. Some consider him the most powerful person in Silicon Valley. Companies beg for his law firm to represent them. The 65-year-old chairman of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati (WSG&R) has suddenly been thrust into the spotlight: first, for counselling many of the technology firms now under scrutiny for backdating stock options (and in some cases, serving on their boards); and more recently, as outside counsel to Hewlett-Packard (HP), for initially defending the board’s dubious investigative practices.
WSG&R boasts 600 lawyers and represents around half of Silicon Valley’s public companies, including Apple Sun Microsystems and Google. Last year it ranked first in private-equity and venture-capital deals, with nearly twice as many as its closest rival. Over the past five years WSG&R has worked on over 1 000 mergers and acquisitions, collectively worth over $ 260 billion.
The recent troubles cast a shadow over WSG&R’s reputation. Although Mr. Sonsini is not accused of wrongdoing himself, many of his firm’s clients are on the ropes. Former executives at Brocade Communications suffered criminal charges in July, Mr. Sonsini Served on Brocade’s board until last year and his firm was its outside counsel. He also was on the boards of Pixar, Echelon, Lattice Semiconductor, LSI Logic and Novell all firms at which the issuing of stock options is being called into question.
WSG&R dismisses the idea that Mr. Sonsini faced a conflict of interest by acting as both director and legal adviser to so many firms and says he did not advise HP in its investigation of board members. Mr. Sonsini initially said it was "well done and within legal limits". It now seems it was neither.
At the beginning of the text, the author stresses （）
A. the public ignorance of Larry Sonsini
B. the popularity of Larry Sonsini
C. the failure of California’s technology
D. the public recognition of California’s technology
参考答案：B
解析：
[考点解析] 这是一道细节推导题，测试考生深入理解原文的能力。本题答案的信息来源在首段的第一句，该句的大意是：“没有几个加州技术人群以外的人士知道Larry Sonsini的名字；但是加州技术人群里面的人没有一个不知道Larry Sonsini这个名字”。由此可以推断本题的正确选项应该是B。考生在阅读时应该对原文的词与句有更深人的理解。