In 2050, one in four people will be over 60 in the Asia-Pacific region. Are countries there prepared to fully address the needs of older persons so that they age with dignity?
In the past, senior citizens might have been supported by their families and communities. Yet times are changing.
More than ever, there is an urgent need for policy reform in addressing population aging. This must be driven by a shift in mindset to turn the challenges into a demographic opportunity.
It is noteworthy that, in the Asia-Pacific, with more than half of the older population being women, it is crucial to adopt a life-cycle approach to population aging, grounded in gender equality and human rights. Investing in each stage of life determines the path of a woman’s life course. When a girl has access to quality education, it helps her make informed decisions about life-changing matters.
While there is no single comprehensive policy that can address population aging, we need to take action now.
| A．Couples are having fewer babies. |
| B．Pensions are increasing, pressuring governments further. |
| C．We must rethink population aging, celebrating it as the victory of development. |
| D．Migration and urbanization have shifted traditional support systems for the elderly. |
| E．The decisions she makes paves the way towards a healthier and wealthier silver age. |
| F．We must invest in better policies that focus on the needs of people at every age of their life. |
| G．Life-long gender discrimination leaves women even more disadvantaged in an aging society. |
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【推荐1】On November 15 in 2022, the United Nations (UN) reported that the number of people on Earth had grown to eight billion (8,000,000,000). That came just 11 years after the world reached seven billion people. The world faces challenges ahead as the population continues to grow.
The world’s population – the number of people on the planet – has grown rapidly over the last 200 years. In 1805, for the first time ever, the Earth had a billion people on it. It took over 100 years for that number to double to two billion. In less than 50 years, it had doubled again to four billion. Now, again in less than 50 years, the number has doubled once more to eight billion.
How fast local populations are growing depends a lot on where you are in the world. Typically, as countries become richer, their population growth slows. In some countries, like Japan, the number of people is actually shrinking. The greatest population growth these days is found in Asia and Africa.
Currently, China, with a population of 1.4 billion, is the country with the most people. That’s expected to change in the next year, when experts say India will pass China as the country with the world’s largest population. Other countries where rapid growth is expected through 2050 are the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Tanzania.
1. When did the world’s population reach 7 billion?| A．In 2022. | B．In 2011. | C．In 1905. | D．In 1805. |
| A．Japan’s population is increasing sharply. |
| B．Pakistan’s population keeps dropping slowly. |
| C．A country’s population completely relies on its richness. |
| D．The world’s population is growing more rapidly since 1950. |
| A．China. | B．Nigeria. | C．India. | D．Egypt. |
【推荐2】On November 15, the count of humans on this planet reached 8 billion. Population growth has been steady over the past few decades. But that pattern is gradually changing, as is shown in the following chart.
Credit: Katie Peek; Source: World Population Prospects 2022，United Nations Population Division
That slowdown is partly the result of a shift toward fewer offspring. High-income nations currently have the lowest birth rates, and the opposite is true: nations with the highest birth rates tend to have the lowest incomes. The gap has continued to widen between wealthy nations and poorer ones. But longer term, it is moving toward convergence(趋同).
Many factors contribute to the changes of the world’s population, such as migration, death rate, longevity and others. Focusing on fertility(生育率), however, helpfully clarifies why the total number of humans on Earth seems set to fall. Fertility refers to the average total number of live births per female individual in a region or country. The U.S.’s current fertility rate, for example, is about 1.7; China’s is 1.2. A fertility of 2.1 is considered the replacement rate—that is, the required number of offspring, on average, for a population to hold steady. Today birth rates in the wealthiest countries have dropped below the replacement rate, the rest likely following suit over the coming decades.
Humanity’s future clearly depends on many things besides fertility. For example, people in wealthier nations may produce fewer children, but those offspring tend to consume more resources—so rich countries can still have outsize planetary impacts despite their decreasing populations. Organizations such as the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs are working toward policy-based solutions for how all of us can have healthy, satisfying and sustainable lives on Earth. A clear-eyed understanding of population changes is critical for reaching that bright future.
1. Which time period may witness the slowest global population growth?| A．1960~1974. | B．2037~2058. | C．1987~1998. | D．2022~2037. |
| A．The definition of fertility rate. | B．The cause of the low fertility rate. |
| C．The fertility rates in different countries. | D．The impact of fertility on world population. |
| A．The richer the nations are, the higher the fertility will be. |
| B．The smaller the population is, the more resources are used. |
| C．Achieving human’s sustainable future is a challenging task. |
| D．Understanding population shifts can tackle the fertility issue. |
| A．A blog entry. | B．A book review. | C．A theme speech. | D．A research report. |
【推荐3】Because of ageing, the world needs a robotics revolution. “The question for all of us is: how can we use technology to make the quality of life better as people get older?” Says Gill Pratt, a man who had previously run a competition to find artificially intelligent, semi-autonomous robots for the Pentagon.
Ageing and robots are more closely related than you might think.
Ageing creates demand for automation in two ways. First, to prevent output from falling as more people retire, it is necessary to use machines as a replacement for those who have left the workforce or to enable ageing workers to continue to do physical labor. Second, once people have retired they create markets for new kinds of automation, including robots that help with the medical and other requirements of caring for people who can no longer look after themselves.
Automation is not the only way to deal with skills shortages, but it is one of the most important. At the moment, the robotics market is led by industrial machines. As ageing speeds up, service robots, which enable old people to live alone and help reduce loneliness, will be in great need. They will make it easier to look after people in nursing homes and enable older workers who want to stay employed to keep up with the physical demands of labor. Nowadays, therapeutic(治疗的) robots designed for children and patients with dementia (痴呆) and human-like robots that can carry out conversations on a limited range of topics have already been put into use.
According to the International Federation of Robotics, about 20,000 robots sold in 2018 could be described as helpful to the ageing. That is less than 5% of industrial robots. The number will undoubtedly grow. The question is how quickly. Mr. Pratt is optimistic. Over the past five years, he argues, there have been huge advances in artificial intelligence, enabling machines to surpass humans in certain kinds of information processing. In other words, robots perform more quickly and reliably than humans. New firms are pouring into the business. A third of robot companies are less than six years old and make service robots. The costs of research and development are coming down and investment is rising. Within a decade, Mr. Pratt supposes, robots at home will help people with simple tasks such as cooking.
But for that to happen, robots will have to perform a long list of things they cannot yet do. They cannot navigate reliably around an ordinary home, move their hands skillfully like a human, or conduct open-ended conversations. Although they can provide some physical assistance to the elderly, one robot can do only one thing, so multiple tasks would require your home to be equipped with many robots. All these suggest that, in terms of solving the problem associated with ageing, robots have a long way to go.
1. Demand for automation caused by ageing exists probably because automation __.| A．keeps output steady as more people retire |
| B．helps ageing people create more physical labor |
| C．enables ageing people to look after themselves |
| D．creates a market for ageing people’s medical treatment |
| A．people are unwilling to put more money in industrial robots |
| B．people will rely more on service robots than industrial ones |
| C．robots are better than humans at information processing |
| D．service robots are developing fast in the near future |
| A．robots’ ability to move around an ordinary home is reliable now |
| B．one robot can already perform a long list of tasks at the same time |
| C．technical problems in robots may limit their wider social acceptance |
| D．the need for physically helpful robots may decrease if ageing speeds up |
| A．the cost of fixing robots is still high nowadays |
| B．robots can help older workers stay employed longer |
| C．service robots are more practical than industrial ones |
| D．human-like robots can conduct open-ended conversations |
【推荐1】Clothes were once used until they fell apart-repaired and sewed to be re-used, ending their lives as dishcloths. Not today. Clothing, footwear and upholstered furniture are increasingly frequently bought, thrown away and replaced with new fashions, which are themselves soon abandoned and replaced.
‘Fast fashion’ is so called partly because the fashion industry now releases new lines every week, when historically this happened four times a year. Today, fashion brands(品牌)produce almost twice the amount of clothing that they did in 2000. But incredibly, more than 50 billion clothes are deserted within a year of being made.
The trend is having an astonishing environmental impact. Take water. The fashion industry, one of the world’s largest users of water, consumes anywhere from 20 trillion to 200 trillion litres every year. Besides, plastic fibres are released when we wash polyester(聚酯纤维)and other polymer-based textiles(纺织物), and make up between 20% and 35% of the microplastics choking the oceans. Added to this are specific chemicals used to make fabrics dirt resistant and the pesticides required to protect crops such as cotton.
Change is badly needed, but will require the fashion industry to work harder to embrace more of what is known as the circular economy. That will involve at least two things: refocusing on making things that last, and so encouraging reuse; and more rapidly expanding the technologies for sustainable manufacturing(制造)processes, especially recycling. There is work to be done for researchers on improving and expanding textiles recycling. Most used textiles go to landfill(废物填埋场), in part because there are relatively few systems that collect, recycle and reuse materials. Such recycling requires the manual separation of fibres, as well as buttons and zips. Different fibres are not easy to identify by eye, and overall such manual processes are time-consuming. Machinery is being developed that can help. Technologies also exist to recycle used fibres chemically and to create high-quality fibres that can be reused in clothing. But these are nowhere near the scale(规模)needed. Another challenge for researchers is to work out how to get consumers and manufacturers to change their behaviour.
Small steps are good, but big changes are needed. The shameful environmental cost of a new cupboard needs to be tackled immediately, at scale, with style.
1. What are the first two paragraphs mainly about?| A．Clothes should be used until they fall apart. |
| B．Fashion brands are replaced with new ones frequently. |
| C．Fast fashion leads to a significant increase in fashion waste. |
| D．Fashion brands produce twice more clothing than necessary. |
| A．Improving the production of natural textiles. |
| B．Studying how fast fashion affects the environment. |
| C．Releasing new lines four times a year instead of every week. |
| D．Making durable things and expanding the technologies for recycling. |
| A．Consumers are fond of chemically recycled fibres. |
| B．Systems that collect, recycle and reuse are insufficient. |
| C．Manual separation of fibres is preferred by manufacturers. |
| D．Environment damage is mainly caused by using chemicals. |
| A．Big changes are needed to follow fashion styles. |
| B．Huge steps should be taken for the needs of consumers. |
| C．More should be done to deal with the heavy environmental cost. |
| D．Consumers and manufacturers will change their behaviour immediately. |
【推荐2】Handwriting is a fine motor skill that none of us is born with; it needs to be taught and practiced. It is also a skill that benefits us by stimulating our brain: We remember information better when we write it down by hand, research shows.
But for many of us, handwriting can feel difficult as we turn to smartphones, other devices and even robots for many of our hand tasks. The problem isn’t only that we’re less likely to use handwriting. Technology has changed the way we use our hands. The more time we spend on our devices, the greater the probability of problems with our hands and wrists, such as pain, weakness and nerve changes.
“The hand-brain connection is stronger when we write something by hand instead of typing it,” said Paula Heinricher, an occupational therapist. “Although we might be able to take more notes on a keyboard than by hand, there’s research that shows when you write by hand, there is a deeper brain connection and a deeper understanding, so you remember that information longer.”
The ability to write quickly and legibly (易辨认地) also has a critical link with academic performance. A 2013 study found that children who had good handwriting skills in preschool performed better in reading and math in second grade. And in a 2019 study of 141 first-graders in four schools in Italy, children who were taught handwriting developed better reading and writing skills compared with a control group.
But devices aren’t the only one to blame. In general, we’re not engaging in as many fine motor activities as in the past. With key less entry, for instance, many of us no longer turn a key to unlock our car or the front door; instead, we push a button or tap out a code. So handwriting, a fine motor activity, is becoming a little less used in daily life. However, even as we continue to use technology and devices, we can enhance our handwriting muscles with a few strategies.
1. What can be learned about handwriting?| A．It is a natural ability. |
| B．It is practiced less often. |
| C．It has lost its appeal. |
| D．It causes nerve changes. |
| A．Short-lived. |
| B．Unpredictable. |
| C．Irresistible. |
| D．Far-reaching. |
| A．It contributes to learning. |
| B．It strengthens students’ speaking ability. |
| C．It improves quickly with training. |
| D．It is popular among researchers. |
| A．Advancements in science and technology. |
| B．Similar research done by scientists. |
| C．Significance of excellent handwriting. |
| D．Measures for improving handwriting. |
【推荐3】Feeling overcome by your to-do list can make you unhappy, but a new study suggests that more free time might not be the magic elixir (灵丹妙药) most of us dream it could be.
The researchers analyzed data from 35,000 subjects about how Americans spend their free time. They found that people with more free time generally had higher levels of subjective happiness—but only up to a point. Compared to those with less time, people with up to two hours of free time a day generally felt better. However, people who had five or more hours of free time a day generally felt worse. So the free-time “sweet spot” might be two to three hours per day.
Part of finding this “sweet spot” is connected with how people spend their free time. In an online experiment, the subjects were asked to imagine having four to seven free hours per day and spending that time doing “productive” (富有成效的) or “unproductive” activities. Most of them believed their happiness would suffer if they had a lot of free time during the day—but only if they used it unproductively. Though that experiment was based on the previous assumptions (假设), which is one limitation, it agrees with other experiments showing that being in a state of flow can benefit people’s mental health.
Of course, for you, any activities that increase your happiness are “productive”. If watching soap opera in your free time makes you feel better, you should do that due to self-care. And some traditionally productive activities can be easy and fun. For example, walking and cooking can help burn stress and put people in a state of flow.
“In cases where people find themselves with large amounts of free time, such as retirement or unemployment,” Sharif said, “our results suggest they can benefit from spending their newfound time with purpose.”
1. How did the researchers carry out the study of the free-time “sweet spot”?| A．By studying the collected data. | B．By doing the experiment again and again. |
| C．By observing the respondents. | D．By doing an interview with the subjects. |
| A．The activity. | B．Free time. |
| C．The finding. | D．The experiment. |
| A．To present a fact. | B．To make a prediction. |
| C．To explain an opinion. | D．To introduce a topic. |
| A．Much free time with purposeful activities can affect people’s happiness. |
| B．The “sweet spot” has little connection with the amount of free time. |
| C．Much unfinished work is likely to make people feel worse. |
| D．People will always feel much happier with more free time. |
