2. 外语
  3. (1) When Kelly Dilworth applied for a Discover card in July, she was happy to learn that her spending limit was $13000—a level m

(1) When Kelly Dilworth applied for a Discover card in July, she was happy to learn that her spending limit was $13000—a level m

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问题     (1) When Kelly Dilworth applied for a Discover card in July, she was happy to learn that her spending limit was $13000—a level most card companies don’t offer unless a customer is in the highest credit tier. Then she found out the card’s annual percentage rate (APR) was 21. 24 percent, a level that used to be reserved for people with shabby credit.
    (2) Like most credit card companies, Discover didn’t reveal to Dilworth what her APR would be until after it had issued her card. Dilworth notes she could just cancel the card, but that likely would temporarily hurt her credit score, which is well above 700. Instead, she says, she’s keeping the card for its travel rewards. "It’s becoming a lot harder to find a regular credit card with a good interest rate, " she says, "even if you have good credit." She doesn’t understand, however, why financial institutions are increasingly offering loads of credit but tying it to high APRs—while refusing to offer less extreme options.
    (3) Dilworth isn’t the only one who’s puzzled. While U.S. interest rates remain below 1 percent, some of the same financial institutions allowed to borrow money from the government at historic lows are quietly jacking up rates on even people with commendable credit. This summer, the lowest available APRs offered on new credit cards topped 15 percent on average, marking a five-year high, according to CreditCards.com. With the Federal Reserve signaling plans to raise interest rates going into next year, experts believe credit card companies will follow, as they did last December.
    (4) While credit card APRs are expected to rise with future rate hikes, they did not plunge with U.S. mortgages and other types of loans when the Fed slashed its rates to nearly zero during the financial crisis. This is partly because, in 2009, Congress introduced a law to restrict the card industry’s payment and fee practices, says James Chessen, chief economist for the American Bankers Association. To compensate, card issuers found other ways to profit, by either boosting existing rates or refusing to lower rates on new cards.
    (5) For the average American credit card user, these higher rates are already having an effect: The debt of those carrying balances has risen every quarter since early 2015 and, as of this spring, the average household carrying credit card debt owed more than $16000— the highest level on record since Congress enacted (将……制定成法律) the credit card reform act.
    (6) But rising APRs will hurt millennials (千禧一代) the most. They tend to have shorter credit histories and mountains of student loan debt—factors that can weigh heavily on their credit rating, leading to higher interest rates and potentially hurting their ability to pay off monthly balances.
    (7) Dilworth says wider spreads have been proliferating over the past few years, with the lowest available rates hardly budging and the upper limits creeping inexorably higher. As she points out, there are legal limits on certain card fees, but there is no limit on APRs. No one knows who, if anyone, is being offered the lowest interest rates, Dilworth says, because the credit card industry doesn’t need to report that information. "It’s really a transparency (透明度) issue, " she says. "What people are really paying and their APR levels, no one knows that. Not even the Federal Reserve."
    (8) The upshot? Millennials, who make up the largest population segment in U. S. history, are abandoning credit cards, according to Princeton Survey Research Associates International, a New Jersey consultancy. In a study this year of more than 1000 people aged 18 to 29—many of whom came of age during the 2008-2009 financial crisis—only 33 percent reported using credit cards. By contrast, 55 percent of those surveyed aged 30 to 49 carried cards, while more than 60 percent of those aged 50 and up carried them. If credit card companies can’t win over millennials, experts say it could very well erode their long-term earnings potential.
    (9) To make up for lost growth, credit card companies could further raise rates on everyone else. But that approach has pitfalls. In its latest monthly complaints report, the U. S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau noted that one of the biggest gripes from credit card users is that the industry isn’t fair or transparent enough in calculating and assigning APRs. If climbing interest rates are any measure of customer ire—and card companies don’t offer more visibility in their decision-making—the number of complaints is likely to rise. (本文选自 The Guardian)
What perplexed Dilworth most after she got her new credit card?
选项 A、The possible consequence of cancelling the card.
B、The exact measures to get her travel rewards.
C、The contradiction between her APR and credit scores.
D、The appropriate standard of her card’s APR.
答案C
解析 细节题。在原文第二段最后一句中，作者引用了德尔沃斯的例子，说明她不理解的就是银行为什么要将加大信用额度与高年利率绑定。即使她的信用很好；在此前的第一段也提到，德尔沃斯新卡的年利率一般是信用差的人才会有的。因此，她的年利率与信用值之间存在矛盾，故C为本题答案。虽然文中提到过“取消这张卡可能带来的后果”，但德尔沃斯对此非常清楚，并不感到迷惑，故排除A；虽然文中提及新卡有旅游奖励，但并未提及获得这些奖励的措施，故排除B；从文中可知，德尔沃斯认为银行所定的年利率标准不合理，而不是对合理标准感到迷惑，故D也不符合文义，应排除。
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