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 $13,000—a level

(1) When Kelly Dilworth applied for a Discover card in July, she was happy to learn that her spending limit was $13,000—a level

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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 $13,000—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 would likely 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 US 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 US 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 $16,000—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 US history, are abandoning credit cards, according to Princeton Survey Research Associates International, a New Jersey consultancy. In a study this year of more than 1,000 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 US 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.
All the following may help credit card companies profit more EXCEPT________.
选项 A、sticking to the current strategy
B、becoming more far-sighted
C、being opener when setting APRs
D、offering more rational rates
答案A
解析 推断题。从全文的结构看，作者对信用卡公司应该如何应对问题的建议主要集中在最后一段。该段第一句说，信用卡公司为了利润增长，还可以采用原来抬高利率的做法，但是作者在第二句中指出这样做是有问题的。继续抬高年利率的做法在作者看来是不可取的，可见，他不建议信用卡公司坚持目前的举措，故答案为A。作者引用美国消费者金融保护署的调查，指出用户对信用卡公司主要的不满在于年利率太高、设定时不公正和公开，可见，作者建议信用卡公司应该针对这些问题进行改进，故C和D符合文义，应排除；而作者在第八段提到过信用卡公司应该考虑长远利益，故排除B。
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