The latest measure to permit three children per family is meant “to actively deal with the aging population (人口老龄化),” the official Xinhua News Agency reported. The policy includes what the government calls “supportive measures” to make it easier for families to have more children. The measures include plans to lower educational costs for families and increase tax and housing support. The government also said it would seek to educate young people “on marriage and love.”

Yifei Li is a sociologist at New York University Shanghai. She said that most families did not plan to have more children in recent years because of “the incredibly high costs of raising children in today’s China.” Zhang Xinyu is a 30-year-old mother of one from Zhengzhou in northeastern China. She said another problem was that women carried most of the responsibility for raising children. She added, “I don’t want to have a second child. And a third is even more impossible.”

Economists say that China, along with Thailand and some other Asian economies, faces concerns that it could grow old before it gets wealthy. The Chinese population of 1.4 billion was already expected to reach a high later this decade before starting to drop. But recent government data suggested that is happening faster than expected. 

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1.What can we learn from Paragraph 1?

A Population aging is the biggest problem of China.

B China’s population policy is facing adjustment again.

C There are still many problems to be solved in China.

D The high cost of raising children makes life tougher.

解析：选B。B细节理解题。根据第一段Our government has raised the child limit for couples from two to three as the country experiences lower birth rates.可知，由于出生率下降，我国政府将每对夫妇的生育限制从2个提高到3个。故选B。

2.Which is a supportive measure?

A Offering higher salaries.

B Giving housing support.

C Creating more jobs for locals.

D Offering people more training.

解析：选B。B细节理解题。根据第二段The measures include plans to lower educational costs for families and increase tax and housing support.可知，这些措施包括降低家庭教育成本、加大税收和住房支持力度。故选B。

3.What method does the author mainly use in Paragraph 3?

A Giving reasons.

B Listing numbers.

C Using quotations.

D Comparing facts.

解析：选C。C细节理解题。根据第三段可知，作者引用了上海纽约大学的社会学家李逸飞及郑州张馨予女士的话，故选C。

4.What can we infer from the last paragraph?

A China has no need to take the aging problems seriously.

B Thailand faces the same problems as China in economy.

C The speed of China’s aging population is quite astonishing.

D Economic growth will be helpful for the aging population.

解析：选C。C推理判断题。根据最后一段The Chinese population of 1.4 billion was already expected to reach a high later this decade before starting to drop. But recent government data suggested that is happening faster than expected.可知，经济学家预计中国14亿人口将在本世纪末达到新高，然后开始下降。但最近政府数据显示，这种情况发生的速度比预计的要快。说明中国人口老龄化加速且速度惊人。故选C。