Listen this way听力教程答案4

wouldn’t normally be able to afford. Again, you can get in over your head and end up paying a tremendous amount of interest.

However, when used correctly, credit cards can be very helpful. It’s sometimes hard to do certain things without a credit card. Credit cards are also helpful for emergencies and are good for travel. Some credit cards even insure your purchase, meaning if something is lost, stolen, or broken, it can be replaced.

We believe the best way to become responsible with credit is to learn through hands-on experience. If you begin at a young age with a low limit, you won’t be likely to blow it and get in financial trouble later on.

PART 4-B

Teenagers and children everywhere like to buy toys and special treats if they have the money to spend. Indeed studies show there are quite a few young consumers in the world today. But there are some real differences from country to country. An American business school professor has been traveling around the world studying just how children tend to spend their money. He is trying to predict the international market place trends of the future.

University Professor James McMill can tell you what type of consumers your economy is going to have in 15 years just by watching the way your children spend money today. He has been making spending predictions like that for thirty years now and is considered so accurate in the United States that advertising agencies frequently call upon his expertise. Over the last decade Mr. McMill began studying children in cultures outside the United States. His most recent stop was Beijing, China, where he studies the consumer behavior patterns of 780 children between the ages of 8 and 12, whose parents’ jobs range from professionals to unskilled workers. Mr. McMill said he anticipated finding very little consumer behavior among China’s children. But he was wrong.

“Those children are participating in the market place. Typically there is one child in the household and the child has two, four, six parents. In other words there are two parents and four grandparents, and they’re receiving a great deal of money. But I think it was a surprise to me how robust the economy was, you know firsthand, and how robust the participation in the economy was by the children.”

Mr. McMill says most of the money Chinese children spend comes from gifts from their parents and grandparents. In addition, he says, 15% of the (Beijing) children he surveyed are given money for performing household chores and other 6% receive money for work outside the home. China’s children average three and a half store visits a week during which they average one and a half purchase. He estimates children in China receive only 66% as much as children in the United States because Chinese children save more of their income than U.S children. Mr. McMill says the number one purchase for children in both the United States and China is the same thing---snacks.

“But when you get to number two then, for our children it’s play, it’s toys, it’s play items; for their children it’s reading material we’ll call it. When you get to number three items, for the Chinese children, it will probably be school supplies and for our children it will be clothing. And when you get to the number four for their