The world’s population continues to grow. There are about five billion of us on earth now. It could reach six billion in 10 years’ time, and eleven billion in another 75 years. Experts have long been concerned about such growth. Where will we find the food, water, jobs, houses, schools and health care for all these people?

A major new study shows that situation may be changing. A large and rapid drop in the world’s birth rate has taken place during the past 10 years. Families generally are smaller now than they were a few years ago. This is happening in both developing and industrial nations. Scientists said they found a number of reasons for this. More men and women are waiting longer to get married. More women are going to school or working at jobs away from their home instead of having children. And more governments, especially in developing nations, now support family planning programs to reduce population growth.

China is one of the nations that have made great progress in reducing its population growth by about one half since 1970. China now urges each family to have no more than one child. And it hopes to reach zero population growth before long, that is, the number of birth equaling the number of death.

Several nations in Europe already have fewer births than deaths. Experts said that these nations could face a serious shortage of workers in the future.

1. In the sentence “Experts have long been concerned about such growth”, the phrase “concerned about” is similar in meaning to_____.

A. worried about      B. related to       C. busy working on     D. made a study of

2. “Family planning programs” means______.

A. economic policy in a country         B. economic policy in a family

C. TV programs for a family            D. birth control in a country

3. The world’s birth rate has dropped because_____.

A. people marry at a much later time

B. women would rather go to study or work than have children

C. some countries are carrying out the family planning programs

D. all the above

4. We hope that soon the number of birth and the number of death in China will_____.

A. be greatly different          B. be equal to each other

C. drop in great deal            D. become much larger