"We will safeguard Britain’s credit rating with a credible plan to eliminate the bulk of the structural deficit over a parliamen

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问题     "We will safeguard Britain’s credit rating with a credible plan to eliminate the bulk of the structural deficit over a parliament," read the 2010 Conservative manifesto. Well, so much for that. The decision by Moody’s, one of the three big rating agencies, to downgrade Britain from Aaa to Aal on February 22nd was a colossal embarrassment. Moody’s now ranks Britain’s credit lower than that of Luxembourg or the Isle of Man.
    Will the downgrade harm the economy? In the past countries with lower credit ratings have had to pay higher borrowing costs. But neither America, which was downgraded in 2011, or France, which suffered a similar fate last year, has suffered much.
    It is hard to spot an immediate impact in Britain, either. Investors had expected the ratings agencies to act after last year’s autumn statement revealed that the government was struggling to reduce its deficit on schedule. The two other big ratings agencies—Fitch and Standard & Poor’s—both have Britain on "negative watch". Sterling dropped to a 32-month low against the dollar and reached its weakest level against the euro since October 2011.
    Pull back a little, though, and the picture is more worrying. So far the pound is the weakest major currency of 2013. It has fallen even farther than the yen, where the decline had the explicit backing of the Japanese prime minister. In the past few weeks gilt yields have been rising relative to the cost of borrowing of the German government, too.
    Several things are making investors prudent of British assets. As Moody’s noted in justifying its downgrade, the performance of the economy has been poor; figures released on February 27th showed that GDP had shrunk by 0.3% in the fourth quarter of 2012 and is still 3% smaller than it was in the first quarter of 2008. Growth forecasts for the next few years were lowered in the autumn statement.
Britain has subjected to the situation that ______.

选项 A、its currency value has declined against dollar and euro
B、its government was struggling to reduce its foreign debt
C、ratings agencies have taken action to lower its credit ratings
D、Fitch and Standard & Poor’s have watched Britain since 2011

答案A

解析 根据题干中的“Britain”和出题顺序可定位到第三段。选项A对应该段最后一句:Sterling dropped to a 32-month low against the dollar and reached its weakest level against the euro since October 2011. 其中“sterling”=“its currency value”;“dropped”=“declined”。该项与原文是同义替换关系,故该项正确。选项B对应该段的“the government was struggling to reduce its deficit”一句,其中该项的“foreign debt(外债)”与“deficit(赤字)”不符,属于偷换概念的错误。选项C与原文“The two other big ratings agencies both have Britain on‘negative watch’”不符,故错误。选项D中的“since 2011”与原文表述不符,故错误。综上所述,该题答案为选项A。
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