Searching for love is no longer just a favorite subject for songs. It has also become a huge industry. Researchers say the online dating industry in the US earned 649 million dollars in 2006. They expect this number to increase to more than 9 million dollars by 2011.
Experts say that the industry has grown because traditional social ties have weakened. Many young people leave behind a close community of friends and family to find work in bigger cities. People work longer hours, so they have less time to meet new people.
This helps explain the popularity of online dating. Some estimates say120 thousand marriages a year result from matches made on the Internet.
The dating industry has also been expanding in new ways. Many companies offer personalized services for finding the perfect mate. These companies are answering a large demand by single people. They are willing to invest their time and money to find love with carefully planned methods, instead of leaving love to chance.
AskRomeo is a company in Virginia. It provides single people with advice on how to meet a person for the first time.
Also in Virginia, the company True Life Partners provides a more costly and detailed dating service. The company hires a team of professional persons who help couples meet. But this level of service comes at a high price. Men pay thousands of dollars for the service. But women get to take part at no cost.
There are lots of other costs linked to dating. And we wonder how the economic recession(衰退) has affected dating in the US.
小题1:What can we infer from the first paragraph?
A．Songs were only written to express love in the past.
B．Many people will take part in the industry in two thousand eleven.
C．The industry will increase the interest by nine hundred million dollars.
D．Love is not only the soul of some songs but also the heart of an industry now.小题2:According to the passage, we can know ______.
A．most of the marriages result from the Internet.
B．the dating industry is popular now
C．women won’t spend money when dating
D．single people like love at the first sight now小题3:The author took AskRomeo and True Life Partners for examples to ______.
A．emphasize the important role of the companies
B．praise the two companies’ good work
C．show how the companies help expand the dating industry
D．show the companies are the base of the industry小题4: What will the author talk about in the following paragraph?
A．The situation of dating now in the economic recession
B．How to deal with the economic recession
C．What the economic recession is.
D．Whether the cost of dating is decreasing now in the US.
