The life expectancy is the length of time that a person is normally likely to live. As it increases nowadays, the average person lives beyond the age of retirement. As a result, the elderly make up an ever-increasing percentage of society, which makes it more important to make effort to improve the lives of senior citizens.
First of all, one way would be to make sure that the elderly have enough money on which to live. Obviously, when a person stops working, they still require a source of income to cover their basic needs such as food, accommodation and heating. A clear solution to the problem is for the government to make sure that the state pension(养老金) is enough for these needs.
Measures should also be taken to overcome the health problems the elderly face. The government should also provide access to the best health care available, which may necessitate paying for residential homes where the elderly can have round-the-clock nursing, or, at least, providing medication free of charge to all people over a certain age.
If we try to address the problem of social isolation (社交孤立), the lives of old people could be improved. If we organize trips for the elderly to community centers, visits from social workers, their problem of loneliness can be reduced a lot which marks the lives of so many old people living alone and far from their families.
The last helpful suggestion is to change the attitude of the community towards its older members, who are all too often seen as a burden on society. We need to be taught from an early age to respect the views of old people, and appreciate their broader experience of life. This would help society as a whole, and encourage appreciation of the role that old people can still play today.
49. What does underlined word “it” in Paragraph 1 refer to?
A. time B. retirement C. life expectancy D. age
50. What factors affected the old people’s life?
a. the state pension
b. the basic needs
c. the attitude of the community
d. the experience of life
e. social isolation
f. medical care
A. b, c, d, e B. a, b, c, d C. a, c, e, f D. c, d, e, f
51. According to the last suggestion, the old people ___________.
A. should be respected by all of us
B. may be regarded as our heavy burden
C. must change their attitude to the community
D. have to gather more life experience