1 . The world’s population reached five billion on the day I was born. That was in Indonesia back in 1987, and my parents was shocked that there were so many people on the planet.
The human population has never been bigger, but in some ways the planet seems to begetting unbelievably smaller. In the past, travellers from Europe to Indonesia spent months at sea. Now you just have to sit on a plane for a few hours. When you arrived in another country a hundred years ago, you saw unfamiliar styles of clothing and buildings and discovered a completely different culture. In many places today, clothing and new buildings are very similar, and people enjoy the same things.
Even the languages that we use are becoming more global. There are around seven thousand languages in use today.
| A．But the number is decreasing fast. |
| B．Although we are on different continents, we are starting to live the same lives. |
| C．The planet might be a lot more peaceful if that were the case. |
| D．However, since then the population has continued to increase at an alarming rate. |
| E．A number as big as seven billion is hard to imagine. |
| F．With only one language left, there will be no culture difference in the world. |
2 . COVID-19 shutdowns forced people out of work and pushed tens of millions into poverty worldwide. Governments tried hard to provide aid. It was easy in a small country, but difficult for a country with large population and vast rural areas.
Researchers have been finding ways to identify areas of wealth and poverty in satellite images. Through some satellite data and aerial images of one town or another, you can sort of tell whether it’s wealthy or not. Wealthier homes tend to have metal roofs while poor homes tend to have thatched roofs. Wealthier neighborhoods have paved roads and bigger plots of lands, more spaced out.
The researchers use the system to identify about 60,000 people to receive benefits. The advantage of the satellite imagery and phone data approach is that it’s extremely fast and very convenient.
| A．It was opposite in a big country. |
| B．How do they locate the neediest people? |
| C．So there’s a lot of information in the images. |
| D．Most importantly, it’s very cheap to carry out. |
| E．Worse still, it’s not so economical as a house-to-house survey. |
| F．However, in general, poorer people will just have feature phones. |
| G．What the researchers did next was to target the neediest people in those regions. |
3 . People worldwide are living longer. Today, for the first time in history, most people can expect to live into their sixties and beyond. By 2050, the world’s population aged 60 years and older is expected to total 2 billion, up from 900 million in 2015. Today, 125 million people are aged 80 years or older. By 2050, there will be almost this many (120 million) living in China alone, and 434 million people in this age group worldwide.
The pace of population ageing around the world is also increasing dramatically. France had almost 150 years to adapt to a change from 10% to 20% in the proportion of the population that was older than 60 years. However, places such as Brazil, China and India will have slightly more than 20 years to make the same adaptation.
A longer life brings with it opportunities, not only for older people and their families, but also for societies as a whole. Additional years provide the chance to undertake new activities such as further education, a new career or a long ignored passion. Older people also contribute in many ways to their families and communities. Yet the extent of these opportunities and contributions depends heavily on one factor: health.
There is, however, little evidence to suggest that older people today are experiencing their later years in better health than their parents. While rates of severe disability have declined in highincome countries over the past 30 years, there has been no significant change in mild or moderate disability over the same period.
If people can experience these extra years of life in good health and if they live in a supportive environment, their ability to do the things they value will be of little difference from that of a younger person. If these added years are affected by declines physically and mentally, the results for older people and for society are more negative.
1. What does the author want to tell in the first paragraph?| A．The whole world is faced with the problem of ageing. |
| B．Some countries witness people live longer than before. |
| C．China has the highest rate of ageing population at present. |
| D．By 2050, over half of the world’s population is ageing. |
| A．The attitude of the older to life. |
| B．The contributions the older make. |
| C．The health of the older people. |
| D．The activities the older take part in. |
| A．Concerned. | B．Objective. |
| C．Negative. | D．Astonished. |
| A．His own opinion. | B．Some data. |
| C．Causes and effects. | D．Comparisons. |
4 . 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. |
| A．Tokyo, Japan. | B．Delhi, India. | C．Shanghai, China. | D．Sao Paulo, Brazil. |
| 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. |
5 . 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. |
| 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. |
| A．To carry out. | B．To get along with. |
| C．To make use of. | D．To have a command of. |
| 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. |
6 . More than a third of small towns in Georgia lost population in the last year alone, highlighting the challenges of reviving rural areas. New census (人口普查) estimates show that Camilla fell below 5,000 residents. Sparks fell below 2,000, and Milan fell to 661 residents for a loss of 7% of its population. All three towns are in South Georgia.
Many of the young people in these communities graduate from high school and don’t come back. “They go to college, whatever, they don’t come back,” said David Bridges, head of its Center for Rural Prosperity and Innovation in Tifton.
Meanwhile, Georgia’s cities are growing, having no problem drawing people from small towns and other cities. Atlanta grew more than 1% in the past year and is now nearing the half-million-resident mark.
The trend of people moving from rural to urban areas is hardly a new one — it’s been going on worldwide for more than a century. But continued population losses have raised questions about whether rural areas can do anything to reverse the tide.
Rural residents can face a number of challenges including access to good jobs, transportation and health care. Manufacturing jobs have dried up in many places, while modernization and new technology means fewer people are needed for farming. And many people are deciding to have smaller families than was typical a century ago.
“The older generation is dying, the younger generation is moving away, and because there are perceived to be fewer business opportunities, financial opportunities, etc. It’s very challenging to get inbound population.” Bridges said.
Demographers (人口学家) expect the shift from rural to urban to continue. But there are some bright spots in rural America still. Jackson County near Athens was recently named one of the fastest-growing counties in the nation by the Census Bureau. Amazon opened a large fulfillment center there a couple of years ago. And Young Harris, near the Georgia-North Carolina border, has grown by more than 80% since 2010.
1. What happened to the small towns mentioned in Paragraph 1?| A．Their sizes grew rapidly. | B．Their population declined. |
| C．They drew more residents. | D．They raised challenges to locals. |
| A．People move from rural to urban areas. |
| B．Small towns draw people from cities. |
| C．Rural areas develop their economy quickly. |
| D．Population continue to grow in urban areas. |
| A．To offer more evidence. | B．To draw a conclusion. |
| C．To show his contribution. | D．To give part of the reasons. |
| A．Jackson County is the best town in the US. |
| B．Rural towns will keep growing to larger ones. |
| C．Others will follow the lead of these bright spots. |
| D．There can be measures to help rural towns grow. |
7 . People have always been defined by their generation. We had the baby boomers of the 1960s, followed by Generation X and then Generation Y, often referred to as millennials, and the new kids on the block are Generation Z - aged between 16 and 22. It's easy to classify these young people as all being the same, sharing the same attitudes towards life—but is that fair?
People from Generation Z, informally called "Z-ers", may be viewed by others as digital natives, incapable of real-world friendships. But they actually view themselves as hardworking, ambitious and about to change the world for the better. The previous generation, born between the mid-1980s and late 1990s - the millennials were also thought to have these characteristics. But many people view this new generation as “mini-millennials" because Z-ers are different and they have their own set of values and preferences which consumer brands need to cater for.
It's true to say that technology is playing an important part in the lives of Generation Z, particularly in the area of social media. In fact, they have not known life without it and using it to communicate, share ideas and campaign is second nature. It means they have more of a say on what we eat, drink and buy than any generation before them. These young people certainly need to be listened to by retailers （零售商） and businesses - they are the people with time on their hands and money.
But being a Z-er comes with pressure. One young person says "Many people in Generation Z have mental health issues because they're unsure what the future will bring." The future always brings uncertainties but maybe there is pressure for this generation to be the most successful ever.
1. When was a Z-er likely to be born?| A．In 1964. | B．In 1975. |
| C．In 1987. | D．In 1999. |
| A．Diligent and ambitious. | B．Hardworking and incapable. |
| C．Promising and different. | D．Stressed and successful. |
| A．Z-ers have known life without social media. |
| B．Z-ers pay too much attention to digital devices. |
| C．Z-ers and the millennials have the same personality. |
| D．Z-ers become a key driving force in the consumer market. |
| A．Their ambition to be the best. |
| B．Their uncertainty of the future. |
| C．Their addiction to digital devices. |
| D．Their lack of real-world friendship. |
8 . Basic to any understanding of Canada in 20 years after the Second World War is the country’s impressive population growth. In September 1966 Canada’s population passed the 20 million mark. Most of this growth came from natural increase. The depression of the 1930’s and the war had held back marriages and the catching - up process began after 1945. The baby boom continued through the decade of the 1950’s, producing a population increase of nearly fifteen percent in the five years from 1951 to 1956. Undoubtedly, the good economic conditions of the 1950’s supported a growth in the population, but the expansion also derived (源自) from a trend toward earlier marriages and an increase in the average size of families. In 1957 the Canadian birth rate stood at 28 per thousand, one of the highest in the world.
After the peak year of 1957, the birth rate in Canada began to decline. It continued falling until in 1966 it stood at the lowest level in 25 years. Partly this decline reflected the low level of births during the depression and the war, but it was also caused by changes in Canadian society. Young people were staying at school longer, more women were working, young married couples were buying automobiles or houses before starting families, rising living standards were cutting down the size of families. It appeared that Canada was once more falling in step with the trend toward smaller families that had occurred all through the Western world since the time of the Industrial Revolution.
Although the growth in Canada’s population had slowed down by 1966 (the increase in the first half of the 1960’s was only nine percent), another large population wave was coming over the horizon. It would be composed of the children who were born during the period of the high birth rate before 1957.
1. From paragraph 1 we know that in Canada during the 1950 ________.| A．Fewer people married. | B．The birth rate was very high. |
| C．Economic conditions were poor. | D．The population decreased rapidly. |
| A．Couples buying houses. | B．Better standards of living. |
| C．People getting married earlier. | D．People being better educated. |
| A．Nine percent. | B．Population wave. |
| C．The first half of the 1960’s. | D．Population’s slowing down. |
| A．Educational changes in Canadian society. |
| B．Canada during the Second World War. |
| C．Population trends in postwar Canada. |
| D．Standards of living in Canada. |
9 . A decreasing birthrate depends to a large extent on the availability and use of birth control and on high living levels that make the production of additional children to provide necessary and inexpensive labor unnecessary. Family planning is a national policy in many industrial countries, such as Japan and most of European countries. As a result, in most cases the birthrate has decreased. Many developing countries have followed the lead of India (which has since 1952 conducted an extensive, but not totally successful，birth control program) in trying to promote family planning as a national policy. These countries include China, Kenya, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, and Chile.
In the United States, facts of the population question, such as birth control and abortion,_are among the most bitterly debated subjects. The United States has disagreed strongly at times with the use of foreign aid appropriations (拨款) for family planning overseas and doing that is thought against human rights; family planning in the country is mainly run by private groups such as Planned Parenthood.
A number of nongovernmental organizations concerned with population growth have also appeared. Zero Population Growth, an educational group founded in 1970, aims to stop population growth, first in the United States and then in other countries. On the international level, besides the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the United Nations Economic and Social Council provides birth control aid to underdeveloped nations.
1. All the following countries try to take family planning as a national policy EXCEPT ________.| A．Kenya | B．Pakistan |
| C．Chile | D．Russia |
| A．they take measures in family planning |
| B．they don't want to provide necessary and cheap labor |
| C．they want to live a life of high living standards |
| D．they don't want to bear more additional children |
| A．Food supplies. |
| B．An operation to end a pregnancy. |
| C．Foreign aid. |
| D．High growth of population birthrate. |
| A．Americans think there is no need to keep birth control |
| B．the government would rather not copy ways of other countries |
| C．Americans think that is against human rights |
| D．the government is rich enough to keep more children |
| A．prevent birthrate from growing |
| B．provide birth control aid |
| C．advise people to notice the population question |
| D．call on the UN to give help to undeveloped countries |
To understand the current situation, which is characterized by rapid increases in population, it is necessary to understand the history of population trends. Rapid growth is a comparatively recent phenomenon. Looking back at the 8,000 years of demographic history, we find that populations have been virtually stable or growing very slightly for most of human history. For most of our ancestors, life was hard, often nasty, and very short. There was high fertility(生育)in most places, but this was usually balanced by high mortality. For most of human history, it was seldom the case that one in ten persons would live past forty, while infancy and childhood were especially risky periods. Often, societies were in clear danger of extinction because death rates could exceed their birthrates. Thus, the population problem throughout most of history was how to prevent extinction of the human race.
This pattern is important to notice. Not only does it put the current problems of demographic growth into a historical perspective, but it suggests that the cause of rapid increase in population in recent years is not a sudden
enthusiasm for more children, but an improvement in the conditions that traditionally have caused high mortality.
Demographic history can be divided into two major periods: a time of long, slow growth which extended from about 8000 B.C. till approximately 1650 A.D. In the first period of some 9,600 years, the population increased from some 8 million to 500 million in 1650. Between 1650 and 1975, the population has increased from 500 million to more than 4 billion. And the population reached 6.2 billion throughout the world by the year 2000, One way to appreciate this dramatic difference in such abstract numbers is to reduce the time frame to something that is more manageable. Between 8000 B.C. and 1650, an average of only 50,000 persons was being added annually to the world's population, At present, this number is added every six hours. The increase is about 800000,000 persons annually.
1. The underlined word "demographic" in Paragraph l means .
| A．extinction of human |
| B．statistics of human population |
| C．death rate of human |
| D．development of human population |
| A．A slow growth for a long time and then a period of rapid, dramatic increase. |
| B．Too many people on earth and a few rapid increases in the number added each year. |
| C．A virtually stable or slightly decreasing period and then a sudden explosion of population. |
| D．A long period when death rates exceed birthrates and then a short period with higher fertility and lower mortality. |
| A．only one in ten persons could live past 40. |
| B．our ancestors had little enthusiasm for more children |
| C．there was higher mortality than fertility in most places |
| D．it was too dangerous to have babies due to the poor conditions |
| A．warn people against the population explosion in the near future |
| B．find out the cause of rapid increase in population in recent years |
| C．present us a brief and clear picture of the demographic growth |
| D．compare the demographic growth pattern in the past with that after 1650 |
