China's contentious one-child policy, which in 2013 newly anointed President Xi Jinping signalled may be

relaxed gradually during his incumbency, is already partly a misnomer. Some twenty-two legal exceptions
have allowed 35 percent of families at least two; many Chinese refer to it as the '1 ½-child policy'. People
living in a rural region can try for another child after six years; the required length of spacing also varies by
province. Besides the rural allowance, since 2002 China's fifty-six ethnic minorities – anyone other than the
92 percent Han majority – have been permitted three, lest they shrink into cultural extinction . Exemptions
were also granted for miners (because of high mortality), for the disabled, and for children born abroad .

In recent years, only children who marry each other may now also have two, although most couples willingly
stop at one: the cost of kids gets daunting if two onlies also are expected to help support four retired
parents and up to eight grandparents. With China building more and bigger cities than the Earth has ever
seen, and filling them as soon as the concrete dries, the newly urban occupants no longer need sons for
farmhands. Instead, they need factory salaries to raise the one allotted to them . Only the luckiest who,
through some entrepreneurial stroke, propel themselves up the upwardly mobile spiral, even think of more
children.

Although bereft of siblings, Lin Xia also benefited from the one-child policy. Before, when sons had
preference, just one-fourth of university students were female. Today, it's nearly half. After studying
mechanical engineering and communications, she works as a science writer. Her magazine's office is in one
of the dozens of skyscrapers built in the pre-2008 Olympics frenzy in Chaoyang, a bleak industrial warren
that metamorphosed into Beijing's gleaming Central Business District. It's exciting to live in this incredible
city and bigger-than-anything country.

But how big can China actually get?

There are now at least a hundred and fifty Chinese cities with more than a million people; by 2025, there will
be two hundred and twenty. During the first quarter of this century, half the world's new buildings will be
built in China. With half the Chinese now living in cities – compared to one-fifth in 1980 – and three-fourths
expected to be urban by 2030, the construction will only increase. Although China's fertility rate dipped to
replacement within a decade of the one-child policy's enactment, sheer momentum means that its
population will keep growing for another generation. In 2012, China was adding another million people
about every seven weeks.

'I can't imagine 400 million more Chinese,' Xia says – that being the difference the one-child policy is widely
believed to have made. She recalls a slogan from the Chinese National Population and Family Planning
Commission: 'Mother Earth is too tired to sustain more children.' She once heard a prominent Chinese
demographer remark that 700 million would be the right population for China – just over half the current
1.3 billion. Seven hundred million was China's population in 1964. Just a half-century ago.

1. Choose a suitable title for this passage.

a) China's One-Child Policy
b) China's Population Problems
c) China: Bigger and Better
d) China: Too Big for its Boots
2. Who is Lin Xia?
a) A woman living in Beijing, who was born after China's one-child policy came into effect
b) A student of mechanical engineering and communications, who lives in the bleak industrial area
outside Beijing's Business District
c) A woman who has been forced to have only one child as per the one-child policy, but who has
benefited from it in terms of educational opportunities
d) A prominent Chinese demographer and member of the Chinese National Population and Family
Planning Commission

3. Why, according to the author, is China's one-child policy already partly a misnomer?
a) Because it should really be called the '1 ½-child policy'.
b) Because China's fifty-six ethnic minorities are allowed to have up to three children .
c) Because the newly anointed President Xi Jinping has promised to gradually relax the policy .
d) Because its numerous exceptions allow a significant portion of the population to have more
children.

4. Has the one-child policy made a difference to China's population, as per this passage?
a) Yes, as it has possibly prevented as many as 400 million people from being added to the population .
b) Yes, as China's fertility rate decreased significantly within a decade of its enactment, and the
population is now holding steady.
c) No, since the Chinese population is currently 1.3 billion, which is twice as much as it should ideally
be.
d) No, since the Chinese population is increasing at the rate of one million about every seven weeks.

5. What is the most likely source of this passage?

a) A book on Chinese history

b) An article in a Chinese newspaper

c) A magazine article on overpopulation

d) An article on demographic problems in South Asia