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China today is home to 13 billion people--nearly one quarter of the world’s population. The growth of China’s population is largely the result of modernization, which has brought with it more food, better medical care, less disease, and fewer epidemics and famines. The death rate in China has decreased, and more children survive. The higher survival rate in China means that more people are entering childbearing age. This population growth was threatening to destroy China’s chances to become a richer country: just providing food and basic necessities for everyone would consume all of its economic gains.To tame the explosive population growth, the Chinese government launched a drastic policy of allowing one child per family. To enforce this policy, the government has a variety of incentives for those who comply and punishment for those who do not. For example, couples who have only one child get a monthly pay until the child is fourteen, special consideration for scarce housing, free medical care, and extra pension benefits. The pressure to conform is powerful. Couples who ignore the state’s directive suffer social disgrace and economic penalties.The family-planning policy, instituted in China in 1979, has been remarkably effective (though considerably more so in cities than in the countryside). Births to women of childbearing age have fallen dramatically--to about 2.5 children for every woman.China may eventually succeed in balancing its population growth, but in doing so, it is creating a new problem. The irony is that because of the very success of China’s population policy, the Chinese population is aging rapidly. In 1982, 5% of the population was over age 64. In 2010, about 9% will be over 64, and in 2050, 25% will be. At the family level, children without brothers or sisters will each have to care for two aging parents. At the national level, the great numbers of aging people will tax the society’s resources. China shares this problem--a rapidly aging population with- out a large enough following generation to support it--with many of the developed nations of the world. According to the passage, China is in a population dilemma in the sense that ()

A. it is difficult to carry out the family-planning policy
B. Chinese population will continue to increase rapidly’ in the near future
C. birth-rate decreases but the percentage of old people increases
D. more old people survive in the society

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On April 20, 2000, in Accra, Ghana, the leaders of six West African countries declared their intention to proceed to monetary union among the non-CFA franc countries of the region by January 2003, as a first step toward a wider monetary union including all the ECOWAS countries in 2004. The six countries (71) themselves to reducing central bank financing of budget deficits (72) 10 percent of the previous year’s government (73) ; reducing budget deficits to 4 percent of the second phase by 2003; creating a Convergence Council to help (74) macroeconomic policies; and (75) up a common central bank. Their declaration (76) that, "Member States (77) the need (78) strong political commitment and (79) to (80) all such national policies (81) would facilitate the regional monetary integration process.The goal of a monetary union in ECOWAS has long been an objective of the organization, going back to its formation in 1975, and is intended to (82) a broader integration process that would include enhanced regional trade and (83) institutions. In the colonial period, currency boards linked sets of countries in the region. (84) independence, (85) , these currency boards were (86) , with the (87) of the CFA franc zone, which included the francophone countries of the region. Although there have been attempts to advance file agenda of ECOWAS monetary cooperation, political problems and other economic priorities in several of the region’s countries have to (88) inhibited progress. Although some problems remain, the recent initiative has been bolstered by the election in 1999 of a democratic government and a leader who is committed to regional (89) in Nigeria, the largest economy of the region, raising hopes that the long-delayed project can be (90) . 87()

A. development
B. prosperity
C. integration
D. cooperation

On April 20, 2000, in Accra, Ghana, the leaders of six West African countries declared their intention to proceed to monetary union among the non-CFA franc countries of the region by January 2003, as a first step toward a wider monetary union including all the ECOWAS countries in 2004. The six countries (71) themselves to reducing central bank financing of budget deficits (72) 10 percent of the previous year’s government (73) ; reducing budget deficits to 4 percent of the second phase by 2003; creating a Convergence Council to help (74) macroeconomic policies; and (75) up a common central bank. Their declaration (76) that, "Member States (77) the need (78) strong political commitment and (79) to (80) all such national policies (81) would facilitate the regional monetary integration process.The goal of a monetary union in ECOWAS has long been an objective of the organization, going back to its formation in 1975, and is intended to (82) a broader integration process that would include enhanced regional trade and (83) institutions. In the colonial period, currency boards linked sets of countries in the region. (84) independence, (85) , these currency boards were (86) , with the (87) of the CFA franc zone, which included the francophone countries of the region. Although there have been attempts to advance file agenda of ECOWAS monetary cooperation, political problems and other economic priorities in several of the region’s countries have to (88) inhibited progress. Although some problems remain, the recent initiative has been bolstered by the election in 1999 of a democratic government and a leader who is committed to regional (89) in Nigeria, the largest economy of the region, raising hopes that the long-delayed project can be (90) . 84()

A. dissolved
B. discharged
C. dismissed
D. dispelled

Despite so many auspicious indicators, the America depicted in political and intellectual debate is invariably a place we should be building starships to flee. To the left, the United States remains a land of racial repression, corporate oligarchy, and environmental decay; to the right, a country where all things pure are collapsing. Such views hold considerable sway. Whitman’s The Optimism Gap reports that 1996 polls showed that only 15 percent of Americans believe the country is getting better. In similar polls, about half said the nation is worse off compared to how it was when their parents were growing up, and 60 percent believed the United States in which their children dwell will be worse still. Though most Americans are today healthier, better housed, better fed, better paid, better educated, better defended, more free, and diverted by a cornucopia of new entertainment products and services, somehow they’ve managed to convince themselves their parents had it better during the Dust Bowl.As Robert Samuelson noted in his skillful book, the revolution of rising expectations has taken on a life of its own: "There can never be enough prosperity." Polls now suggest that, regardless of how much money an American has, he or she believes that twice as much is required. Samuelson further contends that one reason for all the unfocused anxiety is that the media have gotten so much better at emphasizing things to worry about. Tropical storms that might hit the United States get more network coverage than any favorable turn of events.Television crime coverage, especially, now seems itched to cause civic fright, while movies and network entertainment programming depict violence as far more pervasive than it actually is. As Christopher Jencks, a professor of government at Harvard University. Notes: "When I was growing up there was violence on TV, but it was cowboys having shootouts. I never worried that rustlers world come over the hill into my neighborhood. Now the violence on television is presented as if it’s about to get you personally. Every screen you look, at home or in theaters, has something disastrous on it. No wonder people think the country is out of control."Conservative thinkers and politicians seem distressed by the contemporary milieu in part because Americans are more or less willingly adopting gender equality and cultural openness, including a culture in which minority writing and art are being admitted to the canon. The political and academic left can’t stand the contemporary milieu in part because class war, economic breakdown, and environmental calamity seem less and less likely. "The left elites talk with obsessive negativism about the religious right because it’s one of the few things they can find to still get upset about," notes Orlando Patterson of Harvard. "The right elite is similarly obsessive about the supposed culture war, when all the evidence is that the United States is becoming ever more tolerant and ever more at peace with diversity. It can be concluded from the last paragraph that ()

A. there can always be enough prosperity in US
B. there may hardly be enough prosperity in US
C. US is becoming more at peace with diversity
D. US is both tolerating and benefiting its diversity

Despite so many auspicious indicators, the America depicted in political and intellectual debate is invariably a place we should be building starships to flee. To the left, the United States remains a land of racial repression, corporate oligarchy, and environmental decay; to the right, a country where all things pure are collapsing. Such views hold considerable sway. Whitman’s The Optimism Gap reports that 1996 polls showed that only 15 percent of Americans believe the country is getting better. In similar polls, about half said the nation is worse off compared to how it was when their parents were growing up, and 60 percent believed the United States in which their children dwell will be worse still. Though most Americans are today healthier, better housed, better fed, better paid, better educated, better defended, more free, and diverted by a cornucopia of new entertainment products and services, somehow they’ve managed to convince themselves their parents had it better during the Dust Bowl.As Robert Samuelson noted in his skillful book, the revolution of rising expectations has taken on a life of its own: "There can never be enough prosperity." Polls now suggest that, regardless of how much money an American has, he or she believes that twice as much is required. Samuelson further contends that one reason for all the unfocused anxiety is that the media have gotten so much better at emphasizing things to worry about. Tropical storms that might hit the United States get more network coverage than any favorable turn of events.Television crime coverage, especially, now seems itched to cause civic fright, while movies and network entertainment programming depict violence as far more pervasive than it actually is. As Christopher Jencks, a professor of government at Harvard University. Notes: "When I was growing up there was violence on TV, but it was cowboys having shootouts. I never worried that rustlers world come over the hill into my neighborhood. Now the violence on television is presented as if it’s about to get you personally. Every screen you look, at home or in theaters, has something disastrous on it. No wonder people think the country is out of control."Conservative thinkers and politicians seem distressed by the contemporary milieu in part because Americans are more or less willingly adopting gender equality and cultural openness, including a culture in which minority writing and art are being admitted to the canon. The political and academic left can’t stand the contemporary milieu in part because class war, economic breakdown, and environmental calamity seem less and less likely. "The left elites talk with obsessive negativism about the religious right because it’s one of the few things they can find to still get upset about," notes Orlando Patterson of Harvard. "The right elite is similarly obsessive about the supposed culture war, when all the evidence is that the United States is becoming ever more tolerant and ever more at peace with diversity. The sentence "Such views hold considerable sway" implies that()

A. US is a country with racial repression but without corporate oligarchy
B. US is a country with corporate oligarchy and environmental decay
C. different positions are varying frequently
D. different Standpoints are constantly found

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