A. EXCHANGE B. CHORE C. MUCH D. TECHNOLOGY TRANG 4/8 - MÃ...

Câu 54: A. exchange B. chore C. much D. technology

Trang 4/8 - Mã đề thi 132

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the

correct answer to each of the questions from 55 to 64.

Basic to any understanding of Canada in the 20 years after the Second World War is the country's

impressive population growth. For every three Canadians in 1945, there were over five in 1966. In

September 1966, Canada's population passed the 20 million mark. Most of this surging growth came

from natural increase. The depression of the 1930s and the war had held back marriages, and the

catching-up process began after 1945. The baby boom continued through the decade of the1950s,

producing a population increase of nearly fifteen percent in the five years from 1951 to 1956. This rate of

increase had been exceeded only once before in Canada's history, in the decade before 1911 when the

prairies were being settled. Undoubtedly, the good economic conditions of the 1950s supported a growth

in the population, but the expansion also derived from a trend toward earlier marriages and an increase in

the average size of families. In 1957 the Canadian birth rate stood at 28 per thousand, one of the highest

in the world.

After the peak year of 1957, the birth rate in Canada began to decline. It continued falling until in 1966

it stood at the lowest level in 25 years. Partly this decline reflected the low level of births during the

depression and the war, but it was also caused by changes in Canadian society. Young people were

staying at school longer; more women were working; young married couples were buying automobiles or

houses before starting families; rising living standards were cutting down the size of families.

It appeared that Canada was once more falling in step with the trend toward smaller families

that had occurred all through the Western world since the time of the Industrial Revolution. Although the

growth in Canada's population had slowed down by 1966 (the increase in the first half of the 1960's was

only nine percent), another large population wave was coming over the horizon. It would be composed of

the children who were born during the period of the high birth rate prior to 1957.