Question 8
ComprehensionJAMB 1998 Passage II: Population and quality of life
Population has at last made the grade and emerged as a world problem. Unfortunately, most of those who […] thinking of it in terms of […] between human numbers and world resources, […] capacity of food — a kind of competition between production and reproduction.
Certainly, the statistics churned out are important, revealing that indeed, there is a population explosion. But the real explosion is a twentieth century phenomenon, due primarily to the spectacular development in medicine and hygiene. This has drastically cut down death rates without any corresponding reduction in birth rates; death control without birth control. World population, we are told, has more than doubled since 1900 and will certainly reach well over 5½ billion and possibly 7 billion by the magical year 2000.
The population has brought us up against a number of tough ecological facts. Man is at last pressing hard on his spatial environment —— there is little leeway left for his colonization of new areas of the world's surface........
What are people for? Surely people do not exist just to provide 'bomb - fodder' for an atomic bonfire, or 'religious-fodder' for rival religious sects, or 'cannon-fodder' for rival national armies, or rival political parties, or even 'consumer-fodder' for profit-making systems. It cannot be their aim just to eat, drink and be merry, and to hell with posterity, nor to live out their undernourished lives in some squalid Asian or African villages.
Man's dominant aim must be to increase in quality ----- quality of human personality, of achievement, of inner experience, quality of life and of living in general. 'Fulfilment' is probably the embracing word; more fulfilment, more satisfaction and less frustration for more homo sapiens. Man wants more varied and fuller achievement the society as opposed to drabness and shrinkages. We want more knowledge and more interest as against ignorance and apathy. Then, would we know that the spatial environment is not as small as we think.
Certainly, the statistics churned out are important, revealing that indeed, there is a population explosion. But the real explosion is a twentieth century phenomenon, due primarily to the spectacular development in medicine and hygiene. This has drastically cut down death rates without any corresponding reduction in birth rates; death control without birth control. World population, we are told, has more than doubled since 1900 and will certainly reach well over 5½ billion and possibly 7 billion by the magical year 2000.
The population has brought us up against a number of tough ecological facts. Man is at last pressing hard on his spatial environment —— there is little leeway left for his colonization of new areas of the world's surface........
What are people for? Surely people do not exist just to provide 'bomb - fodder' for an atomic bonfire, or 'religious-fodder' for rival religious sects, or 'cannon-fodder' for rival national armies, or rival political parties, or even 'consumer-fodder' for profit-making systems. It cannot be their aim just to eat, drink and be merry, and to hell with posterity, nor to live out their undernourished lives in some squalid Asian or African villages.
Man's dominant aim must be to increase in quality ----- quality of human personality, of achievement, of inner experience, quality of life and of living in general. 'Fulfilment' is probably the embracing word; more fulfilment, more satisfaction and less frustration for more homo sapiens. Man wants more varied and fuller achievement the society as opposed to drabness and shrinkages. We want more knowledge and more interest as against ignorance and apathy. Then, would we know that the spatial environment is not as small as we think.
According to the passage, population explosion has brought man up against the ecological facts of
- A.man's inhumanity to man, hunger and deprivation
- B.pressing hard on the little available space
- C.little leeway of man's colonization of people
- D.squalid African villages
Show the answer and explanation
Answer: B (pressing hard on the little available space)
Explanation
The writer says the tough ecological fact is that 'man is at last pressing hard on his spatial environment'.