1 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

World Population Day was founded by the United Nations, and this holiday is    1    (annual) observed on July 11th.

The idea of World Population Day started in the late 1960s,    2    world leaders openly declared that adults have the right    3    (choose) whether they wanted children or not. This idea was also viewed as a human right. During this era, leaders were more open about    4    (discuss)child-bearing and the right women had to time their children    5    they wished. While this was just one of the    6    (sign) to the feminist movement in the US, this idea was new to many developing nations at the time.

In 1989, the world population quickly increased to five billion. During this same year, the United Nations founded World Population Day. Both events    7    (occur) on July 11th of that year.

World Population Day is celebrated in many ways‒‒much of this depends on the region. For participants who live in countries where gender    8    (equal) is a law, the holiday is meant to be     9    reflection and celebration of significant moments in history that helped society achieve this basic human right.

Every July 11th, the United Nations also has central celebrations in which all nations    10    (permit) to participate. In addition, the UN holds an annual theme.

2 . Towns across Italy have been racing to launch clever plans aimed at attracting new residents to revive (复兴)their fortunes in recent years. From abandoned homes selling for little more than a euro, to ready- to-occupy houses at knockdown prices, there has been a rush of competition.

The picturesque town of Presicce in the sunny region of Puglia is the latest to enter the game with a very tempting offer. Officials say they will pay people up to 30,000 euros to buy an empty house and take up residency. Even better, the houses up fbr sale as part of the deal are priced from around 25,000 euros.

Authorities in Presicce hope the cash motivation will breathe new life into their depopulating town, where newborns are fewer each year.

Presicce dates back to the middle Ages, flourishing during the Renaissance as a prosperous place known for its fine wine, cheeses and cattle trade. It gains a reputation as Puglia’s “town of green gold” for green olive trees and olive oil. Its location is incredible, surrounded by the nature of the Salento area and close to beautiful beaches and clear waters of Santa Maria di Leuca.

“There are many empty homes in the historical center built before 1991 which we would like to see alive again with new residents,” says local councilor Alfredo Palese. It is a pity witnessing how our old districts full of history, wonderful architecture and art are slowly emptying. The details of the deal are currently being finalized, Palese adds, and authorities are ready to launch applications in upcoming weeks when information will be available on the town hall website.

According to Palese, a 2019 merger (合并)with the nearby town Acquarica to create the larger town Presicce-Acquarica has provided them with extra money to ensure the project can continue for years to come. “After the merger, as per Italian law, our wider territory will be blessed with more public funds, roughly 1,000,000 euros per year for several years forward, which we intend to invest to revitalize (振兴) the old district, ” says Palese.

Together, Presicce and Acquarica now have some 9,000 inhabitants, but only half of the population live in the older part of the community.

The town hall has already launched other plans to attract more residents, including tax benefits to set up new business activities and baby bonuses for families with kids.

1. What problem do many Italian towns face according to the text?

A．Population decline.

B．Financial crisis.

C．Falling tourism.

D．High living cost.

2. What does the underlined word “tempting” in paragraph 2 mean?

A．Risky.

B．Informal.

C．Attractive.

D．Conditional.

3. What is the purpose of paragraph 4?

A．To show Presicce’s past glory.

B．To recommend a travel destination.

C．To point out the economy of Presicce.

D．To stress the importance of reviving Presicce.

4. What is the text mainly about?

A．An Italian town’s welfare system.

B．An Italian town’s recovery strategy.

C．An Italian town’s long-term plan.

D．An Italian town’s current situation.

3 . Many adults in South Korea have chosen either not to have children or not to marry. A South Korean government agency announced in September that the total fertility rate reached 0. 81 last year. The total fertility rate is the average number of babies born to each woman in their reproductive years. South Korea⁵s fertility rate has been the world’s lowest for three years now.

The population decreased for the first time in 2021. It raised concerns for severe damage to the economy. Some observers expect labor shortages and high spending on retirement payments as the number of older people increases while the number of taxpayers decreases. President Yoon Suk Yeol has ordered policymakers to find better ways to deal with the problem. The fertility rate, he said, is still decreasing although South Korea spent $ 210 billion over the past 16 years to increase it.

Many young South Koreans say that they don’t want to have a family. Reasons some say for not having children include: a difficult job market, costly housing, inequality between the sexes, and social inequality. The high cost of raising children in a competitive society is also a reason. Some women say men expect them to do much of the childcare while they face discrimination at work.

Lee So-Young is a population policy expert at the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs. She said, “People think our country isn’t an easy place to live.” And she added, “They believe their children can’t have better lives than them.” Choi Yoon Kyung is an expert at the Korea Institute of Child Care and Education. She said many people who fail to enter good schools and get good jobs feel they have become “dropouts” who “cannot be happy”.

South Korea has been offering different incentives (刺激) and support programs for those who give birth to many children. But Choi said the fertility rate has been falling too fast to see any real effects.

1. Why does the author mention the number in paragraph 1?

A．To present a fact.	B．To explain a rule.
C．To clarify a concept.	D．To make a comparison.

2. What could be a result of low fertility rate?

A．More citizens fail to be happy.

B．Retirement payment falls down.

C．People have to pay higher taxes.

D．Less people are available for work.

3. Which is a cause of the decreasing fertility rate in South Korea?

A．The gender equality.

B．The loss of government support.

C．The ever increasing life pressure.

D．The high expectation of children.

4. What is the passage mainly about?

A．The rising stress among young South Koreans.

B．The government^ effort to improve fertility rate.

C．The continuous low fertility rate in South Korea.

D．The severe economic damage of less new-born babies.

4 . One third of adults over 65 in America have never used the Internet, and half don’t even have Internet access at home. In San Francisco, “the center of tech”, 40% of older adults do not have basic digital literacy skills.

This situation is becoming appalling as over 10,000 Americans turn 65 every single day. By 2050,22% of Americans will be 65 or older. Meanwhile, technology is developing very fast. This means that a large number of people will be unable to proficiently use emergent technology.

Many people believe that seniors aren’t required to participate in our tech future because they’ll be retired and relaxed soon. But this is the farthest thing from the truth. Baby boomers are currently experiencing a different boom: With more people getting older than ever before, their life expediencies are also increasing dramatically. With medical advancements, the number of American people projected to live into their 90’s has doubled since 1965.

However, they don’t have strong financial or educational support. This is not a problem; it’s a crisis. More than half of employees over 50 have been laid off in what’s being called ”forced retirement“. And few organizations are actively helping older employees make the transition from full-time jobs to part-time ones. For those fortunate enough to be employed, 3 out of 5 older workers experience prejudice.

The easiest solution is to teach digital literacy. If baby boomers want to survive the forthcoming retirement crisis, they should get enough digital knowledge and skills to operate today’s tools and tomorrow’s platforms. With every crisis comes an opportunity. Tutoring, customer service, editing, research, book-keeping, and other virtual assistance-based work open the doors. But again, digital knowledge is first required to live in our high-tech society and gig economy. So try to get more online and navigate the growing number of sites and apps.

1. What does the underlined word “appalling” probably mean in paragraph2?

A．Confusing.

B．Terrible.

C．Controllable.

D．Inspiring.

2. What problem may baby boomers face?

A．A crisis after retirement.	B．Being knocked out in the future.
C．Failing to receive good healthcare.	D．Tending to double their life expediencies.

3. What is the last paragraph mainly about?

A．The features of high-tech jobs.	B．The way out for baby boomers.
C．Potential industries in the future.	D．The importance of developing technology.

4. What does the author advise baby boomers to do?

A．Have a good sense of crisis.	B．Avoid retiring at an early age.
C．Look for many part-time jobs.	D．Improve digital literacy actively.

5 . A hundred years ago, the largest city in the world was London, with a population of 6.5 million. Today it is beaten by Tokyo. With barely a quarter the population of London a century ago, the Tokyo metropolitan area has since ______ to 34 million, promoting it to first place in the global city league table. Tokyo’s phenomenal growth is largely due to a single factor: migration from the countryside to the city.

This ______ migration can now be seen in scores of cities around the globe. And it has brought us to a crucial moment in human history. In 1990, most people lived in the countryside, with a little over 10 percent of the world’s population living in ______. From next year, the UN Population Division predicts that for the first time in history, more people will live in cities than in the country, and the biggest growth will be in “mega-cities,” with populations over 10 million.

The ______ of mega-cities - there are now 20 in total - has brought with it huge environmental and social problems. Cities occupy just two percent of the land surface of the Earth but consume three-quarters of the resources that are used up each year. Their residents are making ruinous ______ on soils and water supplies for food and on forests for wood and paper.

______ the world’s population to the countryside isn’t an option. Dividing up the planet into plots of land on which we could all survive self-sufficiently would create its own natural disasters, not to mention being highly unlikely to ever ______. If we are to protect what is left of nature, and meet the demand to improve the quality of living for the world’s developing nations, a new form of city living is the only option. ______, governments, planners, architects, and engineers are beginning to wake up to this idea, and are dreaming up new ways to green the mega-cities. Their approaches ______ two main principles: recycle whatever possible and remove as many cars as possible. So as well as developing energy-efficient buildings, emphasis is being placed on increasing the use of ______ and redesigning how cities are organized to integrate work and living areas into a single neighborhood, rather than ______ cities into residential, commercial, and industrial zones.

Planners and architects now agree that to improve the social and environmental condition of cities the top ______ is to cut car use. They say zero-emission cars running on electricity or burning hydrogen are not ______. What is needed is a wholesale rethink of how new cities are laid out — and how existing ones expand — to ______ the need for cars in the first place. One way of achieving this is to build cities with multiple centers where people live ______ their work in high-rise blocks that are also near public transport hubs. In parts of the world this is already taking place.

1.

A．added

B．mushroomed

C．responded

D．adapted

2.

A．out-of-date

B．rural-to-urban

C．close-to-bottom

D．on-the-site

3.

A．cities

B．migration

C．poverty

D．communities

4.

A．increase

B．advantage

C．management

D．distribution

5.

A．criticism

B．comments

C．demands

D．impressions

6.

A．Promoting

B．Relating

C．Returning

D．Introducing

7.

A．disappear

B．decrease

C．exist

D．occur

8.

A．Generally

B．Naturally

C．Previously

D．Fortunately

9.

A．rely on

B．set aside

C．result in

D．look into

10.

A．self-driving cars

B．public transport

C．green buildings

D．eco-friendly packaging

11.

A．changing

B．arranging

C．separating

D．forcing

12.

A．concern

B．secret

C．reform

D．priority

13.

A．enough

B．possible

C．common

D．scarce

14.

A．emphasize

B．minimize

C．neglect

D．consider

15.

A．eagerly for

B．far from

C．close to

D．ignorantly of

6 . The Most Populous Cities in the World

The cities listed below are the most populous (人口稠密的) in the world, according to a 2018 U. N. report.

Tokyo, Japan

Population in Urban Area: 37,340,000

Population in City Area: 13,960,000

Tokyo is the most populated city in the world and the largest “Megacity” in the world.

The city called the “Capital of the East” is located on the eastern coast of the Japanese main island of Honshu.

Delhi, India

Population in Urban Area: 31,181,000

Population in City Area: 20,591,874

Delhi, also known as the National Capital Territory of India is the largest city in the country. According to a U. N. report, the Indian capital is expected to be the spot of the world’s second most populous city through at least 2030.

Shanghai, China

Population in Urban Area: 27,796,000

Population in City Area: 22,315,474

This is China’s most populated and also wealthiest city. Situated in the Yangtze River Delta, in eastern China, it has a huge business district, two large airports (Pudong and Hongqiao) and the world’s fastest train (the Shanghai Maglev).

Sao Paulo, Brazil

Population in Urban Area: 22,043,028

Population in City Area: 10,021,295

This busy metropolis (大都市) in southeast Brazil, is the largest city of the Southern Hemisphere (半球) and the largest Portuguese-speaking city in the world.

1. How many people are there in City Area of Delhi?

A．10,021,295.

B．20,591,874.

C．22,315,474.

D．13,960,000.

2. Which of the following cities is the richest in its country?

A．Tokyo, Japan.

B．Delhi, India.

C．Shanghai, China.

D．Sao Paulo, Brazil.

3. What do the listed cities have in common?

A．They belong to the same hemisphere.

B．They are the largest cities in their countries.

C．They all have a larger population in their countries.

D．They are all the richest in their own countries.

7 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. double          B. intense          C. pressures       D. stock          E. agriculture       F. trapped G. withdrawal     H. availability   I. drive             J. expanding     K. rising

Throughout history, people have fought bitter wars over political ideology, national sovereignty and religious expression. How much more     1     will these conflicts be when people fight over the Earth’s most indispensable resource water? We may find out in the not-too-distant future if projections about the     2     of water in the Middle East and other regions prove correct.

Less than three percent of the planet’s     3     is fresh water, and almost two-thirds of this amount is     4     in ice caps, glaciers, and underground aquifers too deep or too remote to access. In her book, Pillars of Sand-Can the Irrigation Miracle Last, Sandra Postel outlines three forces that     5     tension and conflict over freshwater. Using up the water “resource pie”. In India, the world’s second-most populous nation, with over 1 billion inhabitants, the rate of groundwater     6     is twice that of recharge, a deficit higher than in any other country. Although water is a renewable resource, it is not a(n)     7     one. The freshwater available today for more than 6 billion people is no greater than it was 2,000 years ago, when global population was approximately 200 million. (The current U.S. population is 287 million.)

Global     8     accounts for about 70% of all freshwater use. In five of the world’s most water-stressed, controversial areas the Aral Sea region, the Ganges, the Jordan, the Nileland and Tigris-Euphrates population increases of up to 75% are projected by 2025. With the fastest rate of growth in the world, the population of Palestinian territory will more than     9     over the next generation. Most experts agree that, because of geography, population     10     and politics, water wars are most likely to break out in the Middle East, a region where the amount of available freshwater per capita will decrease by about 50% over the next generation.

8 . China’s population decline may be much faster than expected, with the number of people in the country halving within the next 45 years, a new study has warned. The prediction was based on the official birth rate of 1.3 children per woman last year- well below the figure of 2 needed to keep the number stable-and forecast a much more dramatic decline than previous estimates. China’s current population is over 1.4 billion and in 2019 the United Nations estimated that China would still have around 1.3 billion people by 2065.

Another estimate published in The Lancet by researchers with the University of Washington last year suggested the Chinese population would halve by 2100. But the new research, from Professor, Jiang Quanbao and colleagues with the institute for population and development studies at Xian Jiaotong University, warned that the country’s population decline may have been severely underestimated. The UNs projection, for instance, was based on the assumption that China's fertility rate would remain at above 1.7 children per woman. China had 12 million newborns last year, 25 percent lower than the UN’s estimate.

The Chinese authorities “need to pay close attention to the potential negative inertia of population growth and make a plan in advance,” wrote Jiang in the study published in the Journal of Xian University of Finance and Economics. The new birth rate, though unexpectedly low, was based on data from the latest census, which is believed to be the most accurate yet because it was collected entirely with the aid of digital devices for the first time and cross-checked with other government data sets. Though the census findings have only partially been disclosed to the public, the limited information already shed a new light on changes and future development trends in the Chinese population, according to the researchers.

The pandemic may have had an impact on childbirth last year- but Jiang and his colleagues said the chances that the birth rate would rebound were low. They said it was more likely that the total population would soon start a rapid decline due to the drop in the number of women of child-bearing age. “If the fertility rate drops to 1, in 29 years the population in our country will fall by half,” they said. According to the new census data, children make up about 17 per cent of the population, while the proportion of over-60s rose to over 18 per cent. The researchers said it was the first time that China had more seniors than young people.

1. Which word can replace “decline”?

A．Increase

B．Decrease

C．Improve

D．Focus

2. Which of the following statements is true about the latest census?

A．The findings are inaccurate.

B．The census is independent of other government data sets.

C．Everybody can have easy access to the full contents.

D．Digital devices played an important role in conducting the latest census.

3. What is Jiang’s attitude towards the future of China’s population?

A．Positive

B．Indifferent

C．Concerned

D．Optimistic

4. What is the main idea of the passage?

A．China faces serious population problems.

B．China’s population problems are being overestimated.

C．Women in China report low fertility desire.

D．Polices are being carried out to encourage fertility desire.

9 . Are you the only child in your family? If so, do you enjoy it or do you want more siblings（兄弟姐妹）?

On May 31, a key meeting of the Communist Party of China unveiled a policy that would allow all couples to have up to three children.

The move is expected to maximize the population's role in driving economic and social growth, since this is a critical time for China to transform the world's most populous country into a powerhouse（强国）with a quality workforce, according to the National Health Commission.

The three-child policy is also expected to prevent the decline in the nation's birthrate and address the challenge of a rapidly aging population, China Daily reported.

China's annual number of newborns has fallen for four years in a row. The country's total birthrate—the average number of children born to each woman—stood at 1.3 in 2020. The number is below the rate of 2.1 that would maintain a stable population, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

The declining birthrate has also brought a sharp increase in the proportion of the population aged 60 or above, rising from 10.3 percent to 18.7 percent in the past decade. An increasingly elderly population will increase the cost of labor and the pressure on the social security net. It also means there will be a lack of young labor force. Therefore, it's not good for economic growth, according to Chen Youhua, a professor at Nanjing University.

In fact, the new birth policy is a step to further relax the family planning policy. The one-child policy was introduced in the 1970s and aimed to control the fast-growing population. Then in 2013, China allowed couples to have a second child if either parent was an only child, and in 2016, all couples were allowed to have two children.

However, not all people have shown their support for this latest policy. Many couples complained about the rising costs of raising a child. A netizen named Qinfeng commented, "High cost of education and both the physical and mental exhaustion stopped me from having more than one child." Also, many women are reluctant（不情愿的）to give birth because that could mean sacrificing their career prospects, according to Mu Guangzong, a professor at Peking University.

In that case, Mu noted that it is better to implement supporting measures with the three-child policy, such as more preferential（优惠的）policies for couples that would ease their parental burden.

1. What might NOT be the main cause for the new policy?

A．To increase the population's role.

B．To stop the declining birthrate.

C．To improve the child- care service system.

D．To address the challenge of the aging population.

2. What can be known from the text?

A．China's annual number of newborns has fallen for decades.

B．The government will protect the legal rights of women in employment.

C．Measures will be taken to improve the high-quality education.

D．The new policy allows couples to have up to three children.

3. Which of the following can replace the underlined word "implement"?

A．To carry out.	B．To get along with.
C．To make use of.	D．To have a command of.

4. What is the author's purpose in writing the text?

A．To show his love of children healthcare.

B．To introduce the new family size policy.

C．To share his concerns about birthrate.

D．To emphasize the physical and mental exhaustion.