2 . 阅读下面短文，根据其内容写一篇60词左右的内容概要。

Why is the world’s population growing？The answer is not what you might think.The reason for the explosion is not that people have been reproducing like rabbits，but that people have stopped dropping dead like flies.In 1900，people died at the average age of 30.By 2000 the average age was 65.But while increasing health was a typical feature of the 20th century，declining birth rate could be a defining one of the 21st.

Statistics show that the average number of births per woman has fallen from 4.9 in the early 1960s to 2.5 nowadays.Furthermore，around 50% of the world’s population live in regions where the figure is now below the replacement level (i.e.2.1 births per woman) and almost all developed nations are experiencing sub-replacement birth rate.You might think that developing nations would make up the loss (especially since 80% of the world’s people now live in such nations)，but you’d be wrong.Declining birth rate is a major problem in many developing regions too，which might cause catastrophic global shortages of work force within a few decades.

A great decline in young work force is likely to occur in China，for instance.What does it imply？First，China needs to undergo rapid economic development before a population decline hits the country.Second，if other factors such as technology remain constant，economic growth and material expectations will fall well below recent standards and this could invite trouble.

Russia is another country with population problems that could break its economic promise.Since 1992 the number of people dying has been bigger than that of those being born by a massive 50%.Indeed official figures suggest the country has shrunk by 5% since 1993 and people in Russia live a shorter life now than those in 1961.Why is this occurring？Nobody is quite sure，but poor diet and above all long-time alcoholism have much to do with it.If current trends don’t bend，Russia’s population will be about the size of Yemen’s by the year 2050.

In the north of India，the population is booming due to high birth rates，but in the south，where most economic development is taking place，birth rate is falling rapidly.In a further twist，birth rate is highest in poorly educated rural areas and lowest in highly educated urban areas.In total,25% of India’s working-age population has no education.In 2030，a sixth of the country’s potential work force could be totally uneducated.

One solution is obviously to import foreign workers via immigration.As for the USA，it is almost unique among developed nations in having a population that is expected to grow by 20% from 2010—2030.Moreover，the USA has a track record of successfully accepting immigrants.As a result it’s likely to see a rise in the size of its working-age population and to witness strong economic growth over the longer term.

3 . A research by the National Center for Health Statistics is seen as an important confirmation of the “Hispanic mortality paradox (西班牙裔死亡率悖论).”

On average, Hispanics outlive whites by 2.5 years and blacks by 7.7 years. Their life expectancy at birth in 2006 was 80.6 years, compared with 78.1 for whites, 72.9 for blacks and 77.7 years for the total population.

The report shows that the Hispanic population has higher life expectancy at birth and at almost every age despite a socioeconomic status lower than that of whites. “Mortality is very correlated with income, education and health care access,” says Elizabeth Arias, author of the report. “You would expect the Hispanic population would have higher mortality, in line with the black population.”

The Hispanic paradox has been documented for more than two decades, but this is the first time the government has had enough data to issue national numbers. Researchers are struggling to explain why Hispanics live longer.

“We don’t know,” says David Hayes-Bautista, director of the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. “We thought it was a problem in the data, but we can pretty much say this is real.”

Potential factors:

·Culture and lifestyle. Support from extended family and lower rates of smoking and drinking. Latino groups in particular have very strong family and social ties.

·Migration. The “healthy migrant effect” argues that healthy people are more likely to emigrate. And when immigrants become ill, they might return home and die there.

“Solving the puzzle may help the nation deal with health care issues because Hispanics use health services less—they make fewer doctors visits and spend less time in hospitals,” Hayes Bautista says. “It’s clearly something in the Latino culture,” he says.

1. In 2006, Hispanics’ life expectancy is years longer than the average of the total population.

A．2. 5

B．7. 7

C．2. 9

D．80. 6

2. What does the underlined word “outlive” in the second paragraph probably mean?

A．To live longer than.

B．To live shorter than.

C．To die out.

D．To expect to live.

3. What is the main idea of paragraph three?

A．Hispanics were born better than whites.

B．Morality is closely related with health care access.

C．Whites should have longer life expectancy.

D．Even experts can’t explain the phenomenon.

4 . 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.