The reality of urbanization is reflected in

Concept

A comprehension passage often reports a widely held view before the writer states a position of their own. The writer's own position begins at the contrast marker — but, however, what is the reality, the wonder really is — so everything before that marker belongs to the reported view and not to the writer. A question asking what the passage shows or reflects must therefore be answered from the writer's own stated claim, not from the view being reported.

Applying it here

1. The passage opens by reporting the popular view of towns and cities in developing countries: that the emergence of such cities connotes environmental degradation, the generation of slums and squatters, urban poverty, unemployment, crime, lawlessness and traffic chaos.

2. It then pivots with an explicit question — "But what is the reality?" — which closes the reported view and opens the writer's own claim.

3. That claim follows at once, set against an urban population in developing countries that rose from 300 million in 1950 to 2 billion in 2000: "the wonder really is how well the world has coped, and not how badly."

4. The second paragraph supplies the evidence for the claim: improved water and sanitation, power, health and education, communication and transport, with sanitation services extended to more than 293 million additional citizens between 1990 and 2000, achieved against rising urban population, fiscal crunch and strained human resources.

5. The reality the passage sets out is therefore the quality of the response to urban growth — how well the situation has been managed.

Cross-check against the other statements

• "How badly the situation has gone out of control": the very sentence carrying the writer's claim sets this alternative aside, saying the wonder is how well the world has coped "and not how badly".

• "How fast has been the tempo of urbanization": the rise from 300 million to 2 billion is given as the backdrop against which the response is judged, so the pace is the challenge the passage measures the response against rather than the reality it sets out.

• "How fast the environment has degraded": environmental degradation appears only inside the popular view reported in the opening sentence, and the passage offers no measure of environmental change anywhere.