Read the following passage and questions, then choose the right answer from options, the answer should be one of A, B, C, D.

<passage>:
The Dwindling Years He didn’t expect to be last—but neither did he anticipate could risk. If he made it, though.... Well, he’d see those grandchildren of his this year—and there’d be other grandchildren. With the ship, he’d have time serious, but quite definite—as well as other signs of aging. I’m afraid the treatment didn’t take fully. It might have been some unconscious block diagnosed at the time, or even a fault in the treatment. That’s pretty rare, but we can’t neglect was more important. It hadn’t been a joke about his growing old, after all. But now, in a few days, impossible. “Anything urgent on the Procyon specter of age stood beside him, counting the seconds. But at last basket. “Mostly drugs for experimenting. A personal letter For eighty years now, they’d been sending out the little ships that vanished at greater than the conscious level and forced to operate. the first hope they’d found that the century-long trips between stars in the ponderous shuttles might be ended and he should have been filled with excitement on the first projection. Only his youngest son would have sent an elaborate tercentenary greeting verse—one that would arrive ninety years too late! Harry had been born just before Earth passed the drastic birth limitation avoid the compulsory emigration draft and stay on with his mother. over that which had finally broken Giles’ fifth marriage. Oddly enough, the message in the next frame showed none of that. Harry had nothing but praise for the solar system where he’d been sent. He barely mentioned being married on the way or his dozen children, but filled most of the frame with glowing description and a plea for his need more treatment. Ten o’clock okay?” “But I’ll be all right?” chess collections in the world, but of his profession. “We haven’t lost a patient in two hundred years, to my knowledge.” “Thanks,” said Giles. “Ten against the background of an alien but attractive world. He had no desire to spend ninety years cooped up with a shuttles. And even if Exodus he should give up his work. The discovery that men could live practically forever had put an end to most family ties sentiment wore thin in half a century—which wasn’t much time ever got the super-light drive working, there was no reason now, though it had once seemed long enough. all thumbs. None of the other interests he’d developed through the years helped to add to the richness of living now. He gave it up and went to bed—to a family. Giles had been living here for nearly a century now and he’d never regretted it. But tonight his own group irritated him. “Antigravity!” His voice was He puzzled over it, finding no real reason. Certainly they weren’t Harry had been a complete nuisance, running around with Earth conveyance to pass casual various nostrums, giving him no above the ground. Faint begging for their secret in a couple of hundred years! While a hundred other worlds make a thousand major discoveries they don’t bother reporting! Can’t the Council see anything Even that failed him, though. Earth was becoming a backwater world no real progress had been made in two centuries the young He’d developed one of the finest their first fifty years of education were finished, and the older men were too conservative for really new thinking. There was a measure of truth in it, unfortunately. “They’ll slow up when their populations fill,” Giles repeated his old answers. “We’re still ahead in medicine and we’ll get the other discoveries eventually, without interrupting the work of making or other. the Earth fit for our longevity. We can wait. We’ll have to.” Could they really dwindle down to something down? Suppose he couldn’t rejuvenate all the way? He knew that there were some people who days. We can have the secret of about thirty, instead of the normal early twenties. Would that reduce the slice of eternity that rejuvenation meant? And what this antigravity in less than a had happened to Sol? year! We—” centuries, if we can ever master it. Even with Sirius expecting the drafted for building long enough now we can finish it in three Procyon in two weeks. We even know life can stand the trip. The rats were unharmed.” Giles shook his head at what the other was proposing, only partly believing it. “Rats don’t have minds that could show any real damage such as the loss of power to rejuvenate. We can’t put human pilots into a ship with our could correct for errors on arrival. Maybe if we put in stronger signaling transmitters....” “Yeah. Maybe in two centuries It hadn’t been that kind of have the big ship. All we need is one GILES TRIED to stop scaring himself and partially succeeded, until he reached the doctor’s volunteer!” nor the last, nor the one before that. Or how about you? Do you really want to risk losing the rest of your life rather than waiting a couple more centuries until we know it’s safe? If you do, I’ll “All right, Bill. Find me one volunteer. NO SANE man would risk a chance for near eternity against such a relatively short wait. Heroism had belonged to those who knew their days were numbered, anyhow. “Forget it, Bill,” Giles advised. “It may take longer, but eventually by an effort. “It’s a shock They had to plan and build for it. They couldn’t risk that plan for short-term benefits. Usually it was too easy to realize that, and the sight of the solid, time-enduring loses a little each time. And the effect is cumulative. It’s like an asymptotic curve—the further it you won’t be the last, if that’s any consolation. We’ve got a longer time scale than we used to have—but it’s in centuries, not in eons. For everybody, not just you.” It was no consolation. Giles nodded mechanically. “I won’t we can make them better. Geriatric knowledge is still on record. We can fix the heart and all the rest. You’ll be in good physical condition, better than your grandfather—” pronounce the words. He’d grown old and he’d grow older. And eventually he’d die! An immortal man had suddenly found death hovering on his trail. The years had dwindled and gone, and only a few were left. saved him the suspense of growing doubt and horrible eventual discovery. then at the buildings built to last for thousands of years. Their eternity was no longer a part of him. Even his car would outlast him. no longer wondering about the dangers that might possibly arise. Those wouldn’t matter much now. For a man who had thought of living almost forever, there was nothing to worry about Earth’s doctors could cure anything. wanted no chance to have them asking questions he couldn’t answer. It was none of their business. could still fill his time with work—work that might even be useful. right?” “As all right as I’ll ever be,” he told her. “They tell me I’m just growing old.” didn’t go in for home visits now—they preferred to see their doctors patients in the laboratories that counted his wealth in possessions, instead of the treasures he could build inside himself for the future housed their offices. If this kept vehicle on the alien planet. as so many others had, for even with modern safety measures so strict, there was always a small chance of some accident and nobody had any desire to spend the long future as a cripple. he’d never seen even pictures of his other grandchildren. Family ties melted away too fast for interstellar the low, massive medical building. It was almost too much consideration. slackening of them in Harry’s case, and somehow it looked like a family, rather than a mere travel. Yet there seemed to be no He read Harry’s note again, with its praise for the planet and its invitation. He wondered if itself. “The years dwindle down to a precious few....” he remembered. “A precious few.” Those dwindling years had

<question>:
Why is Earth so stunted in comparison to other colonies?

<options>:
A They don’t have the right kind of technology.
B They’re overpopulated and sending off their youngest people.
C They don’t receive the same attention.
D No one is dying, so their priorities don’t lend themselves to progress.

<answer>:

D