Is 0ffice Gossip Helpful or Hurtful? Do you take part in office gossip? I don't like to think of myself as a gossip, but I have to admit I often do it. In my turbulent industry, I __1__ my behavior - perhaps wrongly – by___2___ that gossip helps me get information and figure out what is going on. Amid a rise in office gossip,researchers are disagreeing over whether it is __3___ good or bad. Some defend it as a way of building bonds among people and sharing essential information. But others hold that office gossip can be savage and ___4____, as the New York Times reports. (At one company, PrintingForLess.com, which has a strict no-gossip policy, gossiping about colleagues can become a firing offense.) In one case analyzed in a scholarly journal, middle school teachers' gossip about their principal became so poisonous that the principal ___5___. Many teachers fled the school and students' test scores declined. In this case, gossip amounted to "a form of warfare that brought everyone down." On the other hand, less ___6____ gossip that stops short of repeating lies or breaching ___7____ can serve as a source of understanding. Gossip helps us analyze the motivations of other people, and enables those low on the food chain, in particular, to____8___ how power is used in their organizations, says this New York Times article. It is relaxing, it brings people together, and as a pastime it beats gambling, drinking or doing drugs,this reasoning holds. Whatever side you take, gossip is here to stay. It is a universal human practice and it is too complex to say it is either good or bad, a University of Colorado researcher says. When researchers at Case Western University asked students to cite lessons they had 1earned from gossip, the students gave these examples: "Infidelity will eventually catch up with you" and "Cheerfu1 peop1e are not necessarily happy." This positive ___9____ of gossip was featured recently in the news letter Work & Family Life. I have seen gossip he1p co-workers in some places where I have work, giving rise to ____10____ or offers of support when someone is going through hard times. On the other hand, I have also seen gossip over an office romance, for example, distracting people from the work and even forcing unwanted transfers. (A) analyzed (B) malignant (C) eventually (D) justify (E) destructive (F) reasoning (G) confidences (H) necessary (I) retaliated (J) understand (K) fundamentally (L) distracting (M) maintenance (N) dimension (O) compassion