SBI Clerk 20 July 2014

In the following passage there are blanks, each of which has been numbered. These numbers are printed below the passage, against each,
five words are suggested, one of which fits the blank appropriately. Find out the appropriate word in each case.
The assessment of humanity’s (1) in the next 100 years, which has taken 21 months to complete, argues strongly that to achieve long and healthy lives for all 9
billion people (2) to be living in 2050, the twin issues of population and (3) must be pushed to the top of political and economic agenda. Both issues have been
largely (4) by politicians and played down by environment and development for 20 years. ‘The number of people living on the planet has never been higher, their levels of consumption are (5) and vast changes are taking place in the environment. We (6) choose to rebalance the use of resources (7) a more egalitarian pattern of consumption…. or we can choose to do nothing and to (8) into a downward spiral of economic and environmental ills (9) to a more unequal and inhospitable future. At today’s rate of population increase developing countries will have to build the equivalent of a city of a million people every five days from now to 2050, says the report. “Global population growth is (10) for the next few decades. By 2050, it is projected that today’s population of 7 billion will have grown by 2.3 billion, the equivalent of new China and an India.”