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  3. Time was, old people knew their place. Scepters were passed to sons and daughters, crowns placed on younger heads. Not anymore.

Time was, old people knew their place. Scepters were passed to sons and daughters, crowns placed on younger heads. Not anymore.

admin2022-04-20  65
问题     Time was, old people knew their place. Scepters were passed to sons and daughters, crowns placed on younger heads. Not anymore. The elderly are no longer a sidelined sliver of society, but its mainstream. During the next two generations, the number of the world’s people older than 60 will quadruple, rising from 606 million now to 2 billion in 2050. For the first time in human history, the elderly will outnumber children, "The graying of the globe is quite simply the most significant population shift in-history," says Ann Pawliczko of the United Nations Population Fund.
    And growing old doesn’t mean what it used to. Better medical care has increased the average global life expectancy by two decades—to 66. "One hundred is the new 60," cracks Marty Davis, of the American Association of Retired People. In the West, technology and wealth are empowering the aged They are an increasingly vocal political lobby and muscular consumers. The portfolio of Senioragency, Europe’s only ad agency aimed at the 50-plus market, used to consist of hearing aids and insurance. Now mainstream companies like Coca-Cola and Siemens are approaching the firm. "We’re used to thinking of a 60-year-old person who looks like ’Whistler’s Mother but we should be thinking about someone who looks like Tina Turner ," says Gloria Gutman, president of the International Association of Gerontology.
    The rapidly shifting demographics are forcing a radical rethinking of many facets of our lives. Two billion elderly will need new systems of care and support. The growing number of old people who want to live independently will need housing, streets and cityscapes that will accommodate their slower pace. Smart technology will have to plug nursing shortages; architects and social planners will have to start catering for populations with dementia and failing eyesight or hearing.
    In contrast to the youth-driven culture of the last half century, the elderly will set the agenda for how the late-21st century lives. Already societies have begun facing the pension crisis, the scariest specter haunting Western treasuries. For one thing, 80 percent of the world already can’t afford to retire. Even in Western Europe and the United States, say experts, the very concept of retirement may soon be viewed as a historical aberrational social curiosity from the era between World War II and the war on terror. And paying for the elderly is just a fraction of the massive upheaval underway. What’s been dubbed "the silent revolution" is changing everything from politics to tax structures to the width of the world’s doorways (for wheelchairs).
What can we infer from Paragraph 3?
选项 A、Existing systems of care and support need reform.
B、Problems brought by population aging will be solved soon.
C、People have to slow their pace down.
D、People are living longer and better.
答案A
解析 本题是推断题。根据A项的关键词systems of care and support可定位至第三段第二句。该句提到，Two billion elderly will need new systems of care and support(20亿老人需要全新的照料和支持体系)，可见，现行的照料和支持体系将很难适用于拥有庞大老年人口的老龄化社会，可推断出现行的照料和支持体系需要改革，A项表达的意思与此一致，属于同义替换，故答案选A。B项的solved soon和D项的living longer and better在第三段中均未提及，故排除；C项的干扰信息来自于第三段第三句“越来越多希望独立生活的老人需要相应的住房、交通和城市景观，以适应他们放缓的生活节奏”，由此可知，文章只提到老人希望环境适合他们缓慢的生活节奏，并未要求人们放慢生活节奏，因此该选项属于过度推断，故排除。
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