首页
财务会计
医药卫生
金融经济
考公考编
外语考试
学历提升
职称考试
建筑工程
IT考试
其他
登录
职称考试
请阅读Passaqe l,完成第小题。 Passage 1 Among the throngs of Americans prowling the m...
请阅读Passaqe l,完成第小题。 Passage 1 Among the throngs of Americans prowling the m...
admin
2020-12-24
4
问题
请阅读Passaqe l,完成第小题。
Passage 1
Among the throngs of Americans prowling the malls and trawling e-commerce sites, many are looking out for themselves. Retail-research firm NPD Group said, thus far, about one third of consumers have engaged in what is called self-gifting. That's up from 12 percent in a typical pre-recession year, and up from the 19 percent who said they planned to do so last year. The National Retail Federation, the dispenser of all holiday-related data, said in 2012, nearly 60 percent of shoppers would do so.
The latest step in the evolution of our burgeoning culture of narcissism? Yes. Self-gifting makes psychological and economic sense given what Americans have endured these years.
THE POST-BUST(破产) era has been a long, hard, heroic slog of balance-sheet improvement.
Americans have labored to save money and hack away at the huge mountain of debt they accumulated during the credit boom. According to the New York Federal Reserve, consumers have knocked down their aggregate debt load from $12.67 trillion in the third quarter of 2008 to $11.31 trillion in the third quarter of 2012; credit-card debt is off $192 billion from the peak. Americans have cut their load by spending more carefully and engaging in that most un-American of traits:
self-abnegation.
After living frugally for so much of the year and for so many years who can blame a parent at an Apple Store for buying herself a new iPad? Indeed, self-gifting may actually be a function of the new abstemiousness. Let's say you've been holding off on replacing your old television. Why not buy it around November or December when insane promotions and free shipping are available?
Besides, it's not like self-gifters are solely interested in self-pleasure. An NRF survey said that the typical self-gifter would spend about $140 on himself this year. For comparison's sake, the survey said the typical shopper would spent about $750 in all.
After a long period of economic madness(remember the housing bubble and the dotcom mess),self-gifting is a sign of much-needed economic rationality. Shopping for others involves a certain amount of wrong guesswork with negative financial consequence. This year, for example, CEB TowerGroup claims that Americans will load $110 billion onto gift cards and give them as presents.
But the market-research firm says that about 1.6 percent of that total, about $1.7 billion, will go unused. Meanwhile, a large percentage of gifts wind up getting returned. Adults surveyed by BIG insight in November 2012 found that 35 percent of people reported returning at least some of their gifts. Returns induce guilt and raise the specter of uncomfortable conversations about what happened to that giant striped sweater. But more significant, returns are bad for the environment.
They lead to more trips to the mall, higher shipping costs, and the unnecessary use of packaging materials.
These days, the rise of e-commerce means shopping is now antiseptic: sit and click. With the charm gone, we have to come up with other ways to make the experience pleasurable.
As the song goes, "Have yourself a merry little Christmas".
What does the underlined word "aggregate" in PARAGRAPH 3 most probably
mean?
查看材料
选项
A.Gigantic.
B.Heavy.
C.Total.
D.Maximum.
答案
C
解析
aggregate意为“合计的”。划线词所在句子意思是“到2012年第三季度,用户已经将他们的总债从2008年第三季度的12.67万亿减少到11.31万亿”。选项中只有total“整个的”与aggregate意思相近,故选C。
转载请注明原文地址:https://ti.zuoweng.com/ti/DlT8KKKQ
相关试题推荐
Passage2 Americanstodaydon′tplaceaveryhighvalueonintellect.Ourhe...
Passage2 Americanstodaydon′tplaceaveryhighvalueonintellect.Ourhe...
Passage2 Americanstodaydon′tplaceaveryhighvalueonintellect.Ourhe...
Passage2 Americansdon’tliketolosewars.Ofcourse,alotdependsonhowy...
Passage2 Americansdon’tliketolosewars.Ofcourse,alotdependsonhowy...
Passage2 Ofallthecomponentsofagoodnight′ssleep,dreamsseemtobe...
Passage2 Ofallthecomponentsofagoodnight′ssleep,dreamsseemtobe...
Passage2 Ofallthecomponentsofagoodnight′ssleep,dreamsseemtobe...
Passage2 ForcenturiesinSpainandLatinAmerica,headinghomeforluncha...
Passage2 ForcenturiesinSpainandLatinAmerica,headinghomeforluncha...
随机试题
下列各项所得中,应缴纳个人所得税的是()。 A.扣缴义务人代扣代缴税款,按规
与葡萄酒色斑相比,中线型微静脉畸形最显著特点是 A、周界清楚 B、呈鲜红或
桥梁承载能力评定时,大吨位车辆混入率指车辆质量超过()的车辆所占比例。
氯丙嗪的临床应用是
评标委员会经评审,认为所有投标都不符合招标文件要求的,可以()。A.与投标人就投标价格进行实质性谈判B.取消招标C.组织重新招标D.否决所有投标
公司分析中最重要的是()。A、公司经营能力分析B、公司行业地位分析C、公司产品分析D、公司财务分析
属于真性红细胞增多症血象特点的是A:网织红细胞百分率增高B:嗜多色红细胞增多C:白细胞数量减少D:分类以有核红细胞为主E:核右移
单侧壁导坑法,侧壁导坑宽度一般不宜超过()倍洞宽。A、1/3B、2/5C、1/2D、2/3
《城市排水工程规划规范》(GB50318—2000)中明确规定,城市排水工程规划的主要内容应包括()A:划定城市排水范围、预测城市排水量B:原则确定处理后污水
下列选项中,关于工作分析方法的说法,正确的有()。A.目前,开展工作分析时通常将问卷法与访谈法结合使用B.工作实践法可以适用于危险性较强的工作C.工作日志