23. What does the underlined word "aggregate" in PARAGRAPH 3 most probably mean?
请阅读Passage 1，完成第21-25小题。 Passage 1 Among the throngs of Americans prowling the malls and trawlinge——commerce sites，many are looking out for themselves. Retail-research firm NPD Groupsaid，thus far，about one third of consumers have engaged in what is calledself-gifting. That's up from 12 percent in a typical pre- recession year，and up fromthe 19 percent who said they planned to do so last year. The Nationals Retail Federation，thedispenser of all holiday-related data，said in 2012，nearly 60percent of shoppers would do so. The latest step in the evolution of our burgeoning culture ofnarcissism? Yes. Self-gifting makes psychological and economic sense given whatAmericans have endured these years. THE POST-BUST(破产) era has been a long，hard，heroic slog of balance-sheet improvement. Americans have labored tosave money and hack away at the huge mountain of debt they accumulated duringthe credit boom. According to the New York Federal Reserve，consumershave knocked down their aggregate debt load from $12.67 trillion in thethird 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 theirload by spending more carefully and engaging in that most un-American oftraits: self-abnegation. After living frugally for so much of the year and for so many yearswho can blame a parent at an Apple Store for buying herself a newiPad? Indeed，self-gifting may actually be a function of the new abstemiousness. Let's say you'vebeen holding off on replacing your old television. Why not buy it around November or December wheninsane promotions and free shipping are available? Besides，it's notlike self-gifters are solely interested in self-pleasure. An NRF survey saidthat the typical self-gifter would spend about $140 on himself this year. Forcomparison's sake，the survey said the typical shopper would spent about $750 in all. After a long period of economic madness (remember the housing bubbleand the dotcom mess)，self-gifting is a sign of much-needed economic rationality. Shoppingfor others involves a certain amount of wrong guesswork withnegative financial consequence. This year，for example， CEB Tower Group claims that Americans willload $110 billion onto gift cards and give them as presents. But themarket-research firm says that about1.6 percent of that total，about$1.7billion， will go used. Meanwhile，a largepercentage of gifts wind up getting of people reported returning at least someof their gifts. Returns induce guilt and raise the specter of uncomfortableconversations about what happened to that giant striped sweater. But moresignificant，returns are bad for the environment. They lead to more trips to themall，higher shipping costs，and the unnecessary use of packaging materials. These days，the rise of e-commerce means shopping is now antiseptic: sit andclick. With the charm gone，we have to come upwith other ways to make the experience pleasurable. As the song goes， "Have yourself a merry little Christmas". - AGigantic
- BHeavy
- CTotal
- DMaximum