significant 到底是什么意思？有趣的问题，大家都来看看吧

swimswan

◆ All had small populations. At the beginning of the nineteenth century，Denmark and Norway had fewer than 1 million people, while Sweden and the Netherlands had fewer than 2.5 million inhabitants. All exhibited moderate growth rates in the course of the century (Denmark the highest and Sweden the lowest), but all more than doubled in population by 1900. Density varied greatly. The Netherlands had one of the highest population densities in Europe, whereas Norway and Sweden had the lowest Denmark was in between but closer to the Netherlands.
Paragraph 2 suggests which of the following about the importance of population density inthe industrialization of the Netherlands and Scandinavia?
It was not a significant factor.

疑问：这里是说这不是一个重要的因素还是density的数字不大？

     而且我觉得不管是上面那个意思，原文都没有办法推出啊？？！

sdcar2010

这不是一个重要的因素

If countries with different population density have all "exhibited moderate growth rates in the course of the century," then population density is not an important factor for industrialization since causation requires correlation. Where there is no correlation, there is no casusation.

swimswan

Thanks for answering.

关于significant在这里的意思我是理解了，不过跟你的思路不大一样，我的思路有点牵强：这里谈的是这四个国家成功工业化的因素，那么必然是这四个国家的共性，但是在人口方面，共性是人口数目小，但"density varied greated"

不过我不是很理解你的意思，你是说：不同人口密度的国家如果人口增长速度比较适中，那么人口密度就不是问题。？  不是很理解