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Part Ⅲ Reading Comprehension Section B Directions: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to it. Each statement contains information given in one of the paragraphs. Identify the paragraph from which the information is derived. You may choose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph is marked with a letter. Answer the questions by marking the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2. Into the Unknown The world has never seen population ageing before. Can it cope? [A] Until the early 1990s nobody much thought about whole populations getting older. The UN had the foresight to convene a world assembly on ageing back in 1982, but that came and went. By 1994 the World Bank had noticed that something big was happening. In a report entitled Averting the Old Age Crisis , it argued that pension arrangements in most countries were unsustainable. [B] For the next ten years a succession of books, mainly by Americans, sounded the alarm. They had titles like Young Old, Gray Dawn and The Coming Generational Storm, and their message was blunt: health-care systems were heading for the rocks, pensioners were taking young people to the cleaners, and soon there would be intergenerational warfare. [C] Since then the debate has become less emotional, not least because a lot more is known about the subject. Books, conferences and research papers have multiplied. International organisations such as the OECD and the EU issue regular reports. Population ageing is on every agenda, from G8 economic conferences to NATO summits. The World Economic Forum plans to consider the future of pensions and health care at its prestigious Davos conference early next year. The media, including this newspaper, are giving the subject extensive coverage. | 
