Overall，men are more likely than women to make excuses.Several studies suggest that me

n feel theneed to appear competent in all 26,while women worry only about the skills in which they'veinvested _ 27_.Ask a man and a woman to go diving for the first time，and the woman is likely tojump in，while the man is likely to say he's not feeling too well.

Ironically，it is often success that leads people to flirt with failure.Praise won for _ 28_a skillsuddenly puts one in the position of having everything to lose.Rather than putting their reputation on theline again，many successful people develop a handicap—drinking，_ 29_，depression—that allowsthem to keep their status no matter what the future brings. An advertising executive 30_ fordepression shortly after winning an award put it this way:“Without my depression，I'd be a failure now;with it，I'm a success 'on hold.’”

In fact，the people most likely to become chronic excuse makers are those 31 _ with success.Such people are so afraid of being 32a failure at anything that they constantly develop onehandicap or another in order to explain away failure.

Though self-handicapping can be an effective way of coping with performance anxiety now and then,in the end，researchers say，it will lead to_ 33_. In the long run，excuse makers fail to live up to theirtrue_ 34_and lose the status they care so much about. And despite their protests to the _35they have only themsclves to blame.

A) contrary F) labeled K) potential

B) fatigue G) legacies L) rcalms

C) heavily H) mastering M) reciprocal

D) heaving l) momentum N) ruin

E) hospitalized J) obsessed o) viciously