Directions: Some of the sentences of the following passage have been taken away. Fill in theblanks with one of the sentences given below. Pay special attention to the transitions between ideas.1) ____________________________________________________________. They are trained from very early in their lives to consider themselves as separate individuals who are responsible for their own situations in life and their own destinies. They’re not trained to see themselves as members of a close-knit interdependent family, religious group, tribe, nation, or any other collectivity.2) ____________________________________________________________. When they encounter a person from abroad who seems to them excessively concerned with the opinions of parents, with following traditions, or with fulfilling obligations to others, they assume that the person feels trapped or is weak, indecisive, or “overly dependent.”The individual that Americans idealize prefers an atmosphere of freedom, where neither the government nor any other external force or agency dictates what the individual does. For Americans, the idea of individual freedom has strong, positive connotations.3) ______________________________________________________.Foreign visitors who understand the degree to which Americans are imbued with the notion that the free, self-reliant individual is the ideal kind of human being will be able to understand many aspects of American behavior and thinking that otherwise might not make sense.Individualistic Americans naturally see themselves as being in competition with others. Competitiveness pervades the society. It is obvious in the attention given to athletic events and star athletes, who are praised for being “real competitors.”4) ___________________________________________________________________. Competitiveness is less obvious when it is in the minds of people who are consistently comparing themselves with others: who is faster, smarter, richer, better looking; whose children are the most successful; whose husband is the best provider or the best cook or the best lover; who earned his first million dollars at the earliest age; and so on. People who are competing with others are essentially alone, trying to maintain their superiority and, implicitly, their separateness from others.5) ___________________________________________________________________________. Americans assume that people “need some time to themselves” or “some time alone” to think about things or recover their spent psychological energy. Americans have great difficulty understanding people who always want to be with another person, who dislike being alone. Americans tend to regard such people as weak or dependent.Americans’ attitudes about privacy can be difficult for foreigners to understand. Americans’ houses, yards, and even their offices can seem open and inviting, yet, in the Americans’ minds, there are boundaries that other people are simply not supposed to cross. When the boundaries are crossed, the Americans’ bodies will visibly stiffen and their manner will become cool and aloof.6) ____________________________________________________________________________. Although they sometimes violate the ideal in their daily lives, particularly in matters of interracial relationships and sometimes relationships among people from different social classes, Americans have a deep faith that in some fundamental way all people (at least all American people) are of equal value, that no one is born superior to anyone else. “One person, one vote,” they say, conveying the idea that any person’s opinion is as valid and worthy of attention as any other person’s opinion. Americans are generally quite uncomfortable when someone treats them with obvious deference. They dislike being the subjects of open displays of respect—being bowed to, being deferred to, being treated as though they could do no wrong or make no unreasonable requests.In theUS, men and women are considered equal under the law. While US Americans often violate the idea in practice, they do generally assume that women and men are equal, deserving the same level of respect. Women and men may be different, but they should be treated equally in all professional and social encounters.7) ______________________________________________________________________________. They do, but the distinctions are acknowledged in subtle ways. Tone of voice, order of speaking, choice of words, seating arrangements—such are the means by which US Americans acknowledge status differences among themselves.Their notions of equality lead Americans to be quite informal in their general behavior and in their relationships with other people. Store clerks and table servers, for example, may introduce themselves by their first (given) names and treat customers in a casual, friendly manner.People from societies where general behavior is more formal than it is inAmericaare struck by the informality of American speech, dress, and body language. Idiomatic speech and slang are heavily used on most occasions, with formal speech reserved for public events and fairly formal situations. People of almost any station in life can be seen in public wearing jeans, sandals, or other informal attire.The superficial friendliness for which US Americans are so well known is related to their informal, egalitarian approach to other people. “Hi!” they will say to just about anyone. “How ya doing?” (That is “How are you doing?” or “How are you?”) 8) _________________________________________________________.A. By contrast, people from many other cultures regard some of the behavior Americans legitimize by the label “individual freedom” to be self-centered and lacking in consideration for others.B. The most important thing to understand about Americans is probably their devotion to individualism.C. It is also obvious in schools and extracurricular activities for children, where games and contests are assumed to be desirable and beneficial. D. This is not to say that US Americans make no distinctions among themselves as a result of such factors as gender, age, wealth, or social position.E. This behavior does not reflect a special interest in the person addressed, but rather a concern for showing that one is a “regular person.”F. Also closely associated with the value they place on individualism is the importance Americans assign to privacy.G. This informal behavior can outrage foreign visitors who hold high stations in countries where it is not assumed that “all men are created equal.”H. Americans are trained to conceive of themselves as separate individuals, and they assume everyone else in the world is too.Americans are also distinctive in the degree to which they believe in the ideal, as stated in their Declaration of Independence, that “all men are created equal.”1) ______2) ______3) ______4) ______5) ______7) ______8) ______