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  3. Time was, old people knew their place. Power was passed to sons and daughters, crowns placed on younger heads. Not any more. The

Time was, old people knew their place. Power was passed to sons and daughters, crowns placed on younger heads. Not any more. The

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问题     Time was, old people knew their place. Power was passed to sons and daughters, crowns placed on younger heads. Not any more. 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. More and more, it’s not the children who are our future, it’s the seniors. 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—in as many generations. "One hundred is the new 60," says 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 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).  
We can conclude from this article that
选项 A、growing old is inevitable.
B、population aging is changing the society.
C、the elderly will show rapid physical and mental decline.
D、global aging is a disaster.
答案B
解析 主旨大意题。本文主要围绕全球老龄化问题展开。在第一段中，作者首先指出老年人已经俨然成为社会主流，而在第三段首句又提到老龄化问题迫使我们对生活的许多方面重新思考，因为人口老龄化已经在改变着社会现状，故B项正确。A项“变老是不可避免的”并非文章主旨；C项“老人在体力和智力方面会迅速衰退”未提及，文中仅提到视力和听力衰退的老人；D项“全球老龄化是一场灾难”显然推理过度。
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