2014年4月托福考试模拟试卷及答案(第四套)_第17页

　　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

　　(5) 1930's and the war had held back marriages, and the catching-up process began after

　　1945. The baby boom continued through the decade of the 1950's, 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

　　(10) conditions of the 1950's 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

　　(15) 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.

　　(20) 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 the first half of the 1960's was only nine percent), another large population

　　(25) wave was coming over the horizon. It would be composed of the children of the

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

　　The word "It" in line 25 refers to

　　(A) horizon

　　(B) population wave

　　(C) nine percent

　　(D) first half