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

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

admin2018-03-01  71
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.
The downgrade of credit ranking will ______.
选项 A、force a country to pay higher tax
B、safeguard a country’s benefits
C、lead to bankruptcy of a country
D、do harm to a country’s economy
答案D
解析 根据题干中的“the downgrade of credit ranking”定位到前两段。选项A对应第二段第二句，原文说的是“countries with lower credit ratings have had to pay higher borrowing costs”，而不是该项说的“Pay higher tax”，该项是偷换概念，错误。选项B明显是肯定选项，而从前两段可以看出downgrade带来的是负面影响，从这点来看就可以将其排除。选项C的“bankruptcy”是无中生有，原文没有提到，故该项错误。选项D对应第二段，由“Pay higher borrowing costs”可以看出downgrade对于一个国家的经济是不利的，即该项说的“do harm to a country’s economy”是对的。故答案为选项D。
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