Answer the questions （根据短文内容回答下列问题） In thetime it takes you to read this sentence, the population of the Earth will have grownby 10 people. That may not sound much, but it is about 14,000 people an hour. Thatis the same as adding most of the population of Germany to the world every year!
Most of these new people are born in developing countries. These countriesare found in much of Africa, South America, and parts of Asia. In the developedcountries of Europe and North America, the population is growing very slowly. Thisis because women in these countries have, on average, only one or two children.In the developing countries, many women have five or more children. In 1950, aroundone quarter of the world's population lived in the developed countries. By 2050,these countries will be the home to only around one tenth of the world's people.
In the developing countries, more than one billion people already live belowthe poverty line (贫困线).These people don't have enough food to eat and they live in poor housing;children get little or no time at school and suffer from many kinds of diseases.
The United Nations (UN) tries to guess population growth. At the beginningof the 21st century, the world's population was around six billion people. The UNhas said that the world's population will level off at 12. 5 billion people by theyear 2100. Other people think the world's population will continue to grow, reaching14 billion people before it becomes stable or even falls.
