1 . One of the biggest social issues in Japan is the increasingly low marriage rate among young people and the small birth rate, which led to an aging and eventually shrinking（萎缩） population. Most young Japanese women simply don’t seem interested in having many children.

Now what began in Japan is happening globally. As David Brooks wrote, birth rate is becoming smaller in much of the world, from Iran — 1.7 births rate per woman — to Russian, where low birth rates connected with high death rates mean the population is already shrinking. And this includes US, which has long had higher birth rates than most developed nations. Aging countries will face the burden of caring for large elderly populations without a larger resource of young workers.

It’s true that global aging is going to present some major challenges. Who will take care of the elderly? Will an older world be less active and slower to change and adapt? It’s all true. Sometimes I worry about a coming generational war over resources, just as I worry about how I will take care of my own parents in their old age, just as I worry about who might take care of me.

But here’s the thing: an older world may have less pressure on the environment. As we all know, the environment is the real victim of overpopulation.

So maybe a world that grows slower and grows older will put less pressure on the environment, and buy us a few more years to ensure our energy use, along with our birthrates, reaches a sustainable（可持续的）level. After all, we’re supposed to get smarter as we got older. Hopefully that holds true for the planet as well.

1. The population issue in Japan was mentioned to ________.

A．show young people’s preference to marriage

B．introduce the topic of global birth rate becoming smaller

C．indicate the deeper cause of Japan’s depression

D．emphasize the revolution of Japanese women

2. Which of the following statements is TRUE according to David Brook?

A．The birth rates all over the world are becoming smaller.

B．The most developed countries have higher death rates.

C．America is the only developed country with higher birth rate.

D．Birth rate’s becoming smaller means a great risk to aging countries.

3. Which will be caused by low birth rates according to the passage?

A．Aging society.	B．Environmental problems.
C．High death rates.	D．Low employment rates.

4. What’s the author’s attitude to the worldwide birth rates becoming smaller?

A．Anxious.	B．Disappointed.
C．Hopeful.	D．Doubtful.