If you're one of the 13 million Americans still struggling to find a job, or wanting to change jobs, a lot of your applications are probably being swallowed up by the "the black hole．" That's when you send in a job application and never receive any follow-up from the company．In fact, only 25 out of 100 applications ever get looked at by companies．

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How does it work? When you fill out a job application via a company website, you'll typically get an auto confirmation email from the company, thanking you for applying．And then, the waiting begins．

Start Wire has linked to more than 5 , 600 employers across the country and receives online updates on job applications for every one of their members．By allowing you to connect your job hunt to your Facebook and Linkedin accounts, it can notify you if you have any connections with the company that you apply for ．

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Click here to put your information on an official list and reach an arrangement with Start Wire to use a free service it provides, and improve your chances of finding a good job quickly．

1.You can probably read the passage from ___________.

A．a newspaper               B．a website           C．a poster      D．a magazine

2.If your job applications are being swallowed up, it means that ______．

A．your personal information has been stolen

B．your job applications are under consideration

C．you can not receive any reply from the company

D．you have to pay money to get your applications back

3.If you want to use Start Wire first you should ________.

A．make a call to the website            B．get access to some employers

C．register an account without payment  D．email the company you will apply to

4.The passage is mainly intended to______.

A．prove the advantages of Start Wire    

B．attract more people to use Start Wire

C．teach people how to access Start Wire       

D．provide key facts about unemployment

Mail was usually carried west on ships that sailed around the bottom of South America and then north to California．That could take several months.  
So, in eighteen fifty-seven, D.C．Lawmakers in Congress（国会） in Washington wanted to make it possible to send mail all the way across the United States by land．Congress offered to help any company that would try to deliver mail overland to the West Coast. A man named John Butterfield accepted this offer. He developed plans for a company that would carry the mail—and passengers, too.
Congress gave John Butterfield six hundred thousand dollars to start his company. In return, he had to promise that the mail would travel from Saint Louis, Missouri, to San Francisco, California, in twenty-five days or less.
It was not possible to travel straight through because of the Rocky Mountains and the deep snow that fell in winter. So the stagecoach（马车） would travel south from Saint Louis to El Paso, Texas, then over to southern California, then north to San Francisco. The distance was about four thousand five hundred kilometers.
Two hundred of these stations were built, each about thirty-two kilometers apart. The workers were to quickly change the horses or mules whenever a stagecoach reached the station. There could be no delay. Each stagecoach was to travel nearly two hundred kilometers a day.
One hundred stagecoaches were built and painted red or dark green. They were the most modern coaches that money could buy. They were designed to hold as many as nine passengers and twelve thousand pieces of mail. The seats inside could be folded down to make beds. Passengers either slept on them or on the bags of mail.
The cost would be one hundred fifty dollars to travel from Saint Louis to San Francisco. If a passenger was not going all the way, the cost was about ten cents a kilometer. The passengers had to buy their own food at the stations. The stagecoach would stop for forty minutes, two times a day.
The company warned passengers about the possible dangers. A poster said: “You will be traveling through Indian country and the safety of your person cannot by granted by anyone but God.”
1．What is the passage mainly about?
A．Different ways of sending mail in the United States.
B．The difficulty in sending mails across the USA by land.
C．The first stagecoaches that carried both passengers and mail.
D．The history of the first stagecoaches carrying mail to the American West.
2．The reason why Lawmakers wanted to send mail by land was that ________.
A．mail was usually carried west on ships  
B．it was safer to travel to send mail by land
C．it would take less time to send mail by land
D．stagecoaches could carry passengers and mail
3．As is described in the passage, the stagecoach ________.
A．could only stop once a day           
B．was modern with seats ,beds and cooking equipment
C．was a closed wagon operated only by skillful drivers.
D．had different horses or mules pulled all the way
4．What can we learn from the passage?
A．John Buttterfield got thousands of dollars for delivering mail in stagecoaches.
B．John Buttterfield kept his promise to deliver mail straight to the West Coast.
C．Passengers might be robbed by Indians when traveling through the West.
D．Passengers needed to pay one hundred dollars for their journey. 

Honesty may well be the policy, but it often deserts us when no one is watching, psychologists report today. Experiments with an honesty box to collect payments for hot drinks show that people are better at paying up when under the gaze(注视) of a pair of eyes. The surprise was that the eyes were not real, but photographed.

Researchers at Newcastle University set up the experiment in secret. They attached a poster to a cupboard of mugs above an-honesty box alongside a kettle ,with tea, coffee and milk. Over 10 weeks, they alternated each week between images of eyes and pictures of flowers.

Dr. Bateson, a behavioral biologist and leader of the study, said that even though the eyes were not real they still seemed to make people behave more honestly. They effect may arise from behavioral characteristics that developed as early humans formed social groups that increased their chances of survival. Individuals had to co-operate for the good of the group, rather than act selfishly.

"If nobody is watching us, it is in our interests to behave selfishly. But when we think we're being watched,we should behave better, so people see us as co-operative and behave the same way towards us, "Dr. Bateson said.

"We thought we'd get a slight effect with eyes, but it was quite striking how much difference they made. Even at a subconscious(潜意识的) level, it seems people respond to eyes, and that might be because eyes send a strong biological signal we have evolved(进化) to respond to."

The finding, which researchers believe sheds light on our evolutionary past, could be turned to practical use. The psychologists say images of eyes could promote ticket sales on public transport and improve monitor systems to prevent antisocial behavior.

1.This passage is mainly about _______________.

A. the policy of honesty               

B. an honesty box to collect money

C. evolution on honesty            

D. an experiment on honesty

2.The reason for doing the experiment secretly is that the researchers _____________.

A. wanted to get a comparatively more exact result

B. had known they wanted to do something illegally

C. meant to get the co-operation of their colleagues

D. intended to sell the hot drinks at a higher price

3.People behave honestly under watchful gaze of eyes because _____________.

A. they want to leave a good impression    

B. they fear to be laughed at by others

C. they've got the nature through evolution    

D. they take the photo for a real pair of eyes

4.The underlined phrase" sheds light on" in the last paragraph means _____.

A. causes somebody to become cheerful      

B. makes something easier to understand

C. comes upon something by accident        

D. brings something into the broad daylight

【小题1】The Information Highway          ．

B

We once had a poster competition in our fifth grade art class.

“You could win prizes，’’our teacher told US as she wrote the poster information on the blackboard. She passed out sheets of construction paper while continuing，“The first prize is ten dollars. You just have to make sure that the words on the blackboard appear somewhere on your poster. ”

We studied the board critically. Some of US looked with one eye and held up certain colors against the blackboard，rocking the sheets to the fight or left while we conjured up our designs. Others twisted their hair around their fingers or chewed their erasers while deep in thought. We had plans for that ten—dollar grand prize，each and every one of US. I'm going to spend mine on candies，one hopeful would announce，while another practiced looking serious，wise and rich.

Everyone in the class made a poster. Some of us used parts of those fancy paper napkins， while others used nothing but colored construction paper. Some of US used big designs，and some of us preferred to gather our art tidily down in one comer of our poster and let the space draw the viewer's attention to it. Some of US would wander past the good students’ desks and then return to our own projects with a growing sense of hopelessness. It was yet another grown-up trick of the soil they seemed especially fond of。making all of US believe we had a fair chance，and then always—always—rewarding the same old winners.

I believe I drew a sailboat，but I can’t say that with any certainty. I made it. I admired it. I determined it to be the very best of all of the posters I had seen，and then I turned it in.

Minutes passed.

No one came along to give me the grand prize，and then someone distracted me，and I probably never would have thought about that poster again.

I was still sitting at my desk，thinking，What poster? When the teacher gave me an envelope with a ten-dollar bill in it and everyone in the class applauded for me.

51.. What was the teacher's requirement for the poster?

A. It must appear in time.

B. It must be done in class.

C. It must be done on a construction sheet.

D. It must include the words on the blackboard.

52. The underlined phrase in paragraph 3 most probably means _____________.

A. formed an idea for        B. made an outline for

C. made some space for      D. chose some colors for

53. After the teacher’s words，all the students in the class _________.

A. 1ooked very serious                 B. thought they would be rich

C. began to think about their designs       D. began to play games

54. After seeing the good students’ designs，some students _________.

A. 1oved their own designs more

B. thought they had a fair chance

C. put their own designs in a comer

D. thought they would not win the prize

55. We can infer from the passage that the author ______________.

A. enjoyed grown-up tricks very much

B. 1oved poster competitions very much

C. felt surprised to win the competition

D. became wise and rich after the competition