Directions:
Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D on the ANSWER SHEET.
① There are many understandable reasons why you might find it difficult to ask for help when you need it. Psychologists have been interested in this ____1____ for decades, not least because people’s widespread ____2____ to ask for help has led to some high-profile failures.
② Asking for help takes ____3____. It involves communicating a need on your part — there’s something you can’t do. ____4____, you’re broadcasting your own weakness, which can be ____5____. You might have ____6____ about losing control of whatever it is you are asking for help with. ____7____ someone starts to help, perhaps they will take over, or get a credit for your early efforts. Yet another ____8____ that you might be worried about is being a nuisance or ____9____ the person you go to for help.
③ If you struggle with low self-esteem, you might find it especially difficult to ____10____ for help because you have the added worry of the other person ____11____ your request. You might see such refusals as implying something ____12____ about the status of your relationship with them. To ____13____ these difficulties, try to remind yourself that everyone needs help sometimes. Nobody knows everything and can do everything all by themselves. And while you might ____14____ coming across as incompetent, there’s actually research that shows that advice- seekers are ____15____ as more competent, not less.
④ Perhaps most encouraging of all is a paper from 2022 by researchers at Stanford University, in California, that involved a mix of contrived help-seeking interactions and asking people to ____16____ times they’d sought help in the past. The findings showed that help-seekers generally underestimate how ____17____ other people will be to help and how good it will make the help-giver feel (for most people, having the chance to help someone is highly ____18____ ).
⑤ So bear all this in mind the next time you need to ask for help. ____19____, take care over who you ask and when you ask them. And if someone can’t help right now, avoid taking it personally. They might just be too ____20____ , or they might not feel confident about their ability to help.
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