Former Irish President Mary Robinson was just making a polite conversation with an Ethiopian (埃塞俄比亚的) teenager about her wedding day. The 16yearold had already been married for a year. “She looked at me with the saddest eyes and said, ‘I had to drop out of school’，” Robinson said in a telephone interview. “That conveyed to me the reality，” said Robinson, the first woman to serve as Ireland's president and former U．N. high missioner for human fights. “Her life, as far as she is concerned, had more or less ended.”
Robinson said keeping girls in school was one of the most important things policymakers could do to address the ing challenges of an ever-increasing population, predicted by the United Nations to reach 7 billion soon. “European countries are concerned about aging populations as is Japan, but this is much less of an issue than the huge number of people which we are going to see over the next 40 years when the population goes from 7 billion to 9 billion，” she said. “Almost all of that increase will be in poor developing countries, so that we have a very big challenge.”
Family planning experts worry in particular about the future population explosion in subSaharan Africa. In May, the United Nations projected the world population would reach 9.3billion in 2050 and 10.1 billion by 2100. Much of that growth will e from Africa, where the population is growing at 2.3 percent a year—more than double Asia's 1 percent growth rate. If that rate stays consistent, which is not certain, Africa's population will reach 3.6 billion by 2100 from the present 1 billion.
Joel Cohen, a professor of population studies at Rockefeller University and Columbia University in New York, said universal secondary education offered a way to reduce population in high birthrate regions. In addition to providing information about birth control, a secondary education teaches women to reduce their own fertility (生育力), improve the health of their children and allows them to move from a mindset of having many children, in the hopes that some will survive to improving the quality of each child's life, Cohen wrote in the journal Nature.
【小题1】In the first paragraph, the author introduces his topic by .A．explaining the author's opinionsB．giving an exampleC．describing the poor education systemD．ing straight to the topic【小题2】What can we learn from the passage?A．Robinson is happy after talking to the Ethiopian girl.B．Robinson is a successful expert in population studies.C．Robinson is worried about population growth.D．Robinson encourages female education.【小题3】What is Joel Cohen's view about secondary education?A．It provides basic knowledge of health.B．It improves the health of children.C．It makes people pay more attention to education. D．It can change people's parenting ideas.【小题4】According to Robinson, what is one of the most important things policymakers can do to prevent the population from increasing rapidly?A．Keeping girls in school.B．Letting girls go away from Africa.C．Letting young girls remain single.D．Keeping girls in families.B
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(答案→)B
解析：文章介绍了非洲女性中普遍存在的早婚的情况，这对于女孩的身心健康都是有害的，也造成社会人口增长的迅速发展。文章给出了一些解决这样的问题的方法。
【小题1】写作手法题：题目的意思是“第一段作者使用什么方法介绍这个话题的？”。在文中第一句话“Former Irish President Mary Robinson was just making a polite conversation with an Ethiopian (埃塞俄比亚的) teenager about her wedding day. The 16yearold had already been married for a year.可以体现出来，说明作者是通过埃塞俄比亚的一个小女孩的例子介绍这个话题的，因此选B。
【小题2】细节题：题目的意思是“我们从文章中了解到什么?”根据文章第二段的句子“Robinson said keeping girls in school was one of the most important things policymakers could do to address the ing challenges of an ever-increasing population, predicted by the United Nations to reach 7 billion soon.”可知Robinson担心人口增长问题，选C。
【小题3】细节题：题目的意思是“Joel Cohen对于中等教育的态度是什么?”根据Joel Cohen定位到第四段的句子：In addition to providing information about birth control, a secondary education teaches women to reduce their own fertility (生育力), improve the health of their children and allows them to move from a mindset of having many children, in the hopes that some will survive to improving the quality of each child's life,可知Joel Cohen认为中等教育可以改变人们的做父母的方式，答案是D。
【小题4】细节题：题目的意思是“根据Robinson所说为了防止人口的增长政策制定者做的最重要的事情是什么?”根据policymakers定位到第二段的句子：Robinson said keeping girls in school was one of the most important things policymakers could do to address the ing challenges of an ever-increasing population, predicted by the United Nations to reach 7 billion soon..可知为了防止人口的增长政策制定者做的最重要的事情是让女孩在学校，答案是A。