Hey everyone!

Welcome to today’s intermediate lesson! This is a reading lesson. Please read the text. At the end of the lesson there is a quiz, so you can check your understanding. Enjoy!

Here is the text:

The Day of Seven Billion

Have you heard of “The Day of Seven Billion”? This was the day that the world’s population reached seven billion. Seven billion people! That’s incredible. Seven billion is seven thousand million. Or 7,000,000,000. What an incredible number of humans.

The Day of Seven Billion was October 31st, 2011. Of course, it’s impossible to count every human in the world. But that was the symbolic day that was chosen by the United Nations.

Where do all the people live?

Here are the population totals of each continent:
Africa: 1,020,000,000 (one billion, twenty million)
Asia: 3,880,000,000 (three billion, eight hundred and eighty million)
Australasia: 33,000,000 (thirty-three million)
Europe: 731,000,000 (seven hundred and thirty-one million)
North America: 535,000,000 (five hundred and thirty-five million)
South America: 386,000,000 (three hundred and eighty-six million)

The population of the world is growing quickly. It reached six billion in 1999, and is expected to reach eight billion in 2027. Why is it going up so quickly? Some of the reasons include better healthcare and nutrition. People have better medicine and food, so they can live much longer.

Having so many people is a big challenge. Many problems like pollution, overcrowding, food shortages and deforestation are caused by a growing population. We will have to work hard to avoid these problems.

On the other hand, a huge population of people can have benefits. Since there are so many humans, we are able to invent new technology and develop our culture very quickly. Also, there is so much diversity in the world, like different races of people and different languages.

Now try the quiz. Please click “Start”!

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