2023届高考英语外刊阅读模拟强化训练：语法填空专题二十六

高考英语外刊阅读模拟强化训练 语法填空专题二十六 ① In the roughly 250 years since the Industrial Revolution the world’s population, like its wealth, _____1______(explode). Before the end of this century, however, the number of people on the planet could shrink for the first time since the Black Death. The root cause is not a surge in deaths, ____2___ a slump in births. Across much of the world the fertility rate, ____3___ average number of births per woman, is collapsing. Although the trend may be familiar, its extent and its consequences are not. Even ____4___ artificial intelligence leads to surging optimism in some quarters, the baby bust hangs over the future of the world economy. In 2000 the world’s fertility rate was 2.7 births per woman, ____5_____(comfortable) above the “replacement rate” of 2.1, at ___6_____ a population is stable. Today it is 2.3 and falling. The result is that in much of the world the patter of tiny feet is being drowned out by the clatter of _____7____(walk) sticks. What might that be? People often tell pollsters they want more children than they have. This gap between aspiration and reality could be in part ____8____ would-be parents—who, in effect, subsidise future childless pensioners—cannot afford _____9_____(have) more children, or because of other policy failures, such as housing shortages or inadequate fertility treatment. Yet even if these ___10_____(fix), economic development is still likely to lead to a fall in fertility below the replacement rate. Eventually, therefore, the world will have to make do with fewer youngsters—and perhaps with a shrinking population. 【The Economist (June 3, 2023)】 ② At least 14 Italians are dead, several of them elderly people drowned in their own homes. Tens of thousands of people have lost everything: cars, clothes, toys, pets. The streets and squares of their towns ___1_______(cover) in mud. The apocalyptic flooding in northern Italy shows that this country is not prepared ___2____ the climate emergency that is upo