Step 2: The passage from Step 1 is reprinted here. Read the passage again, paying attention to the words in bold print. Then fill in the blanks in the sentences that follow the reading passage. Your instructor will tell you whether to write your answers in your book or to submit your answers online for electronic grading.

Government is a labor-intensive enterprise. Public agencies provide services, enforce laws and regulations, and solve problems. All these activities require ¹human resources. How well government works depends fundamentally on the quality of public ²employees and on how completely their talents and energies are put to use. The essential tasks of public personnel ³management are to attract and identify ⁴competent people for governmental positions, to design work, and to provide a setting that encourages employees to work energetically, ⁵creatively, and ethically. When these tasks are done well, government works well. Failure to manage human resources effectively risks ⁶low productivity and a lack of accountability to the public.

The scope and size of the public sector in the United States is a smaller proportion of the total economy and society than in other Western ⁷democracies. Nonetheless, public employees constitute a significant proportion of all employees. Seventeen percent of the national civilian ⁸labor force are government workers. Another 20 percent work for private or not-for-profit organizations under contracts with federal and local governments.

Not only are public employees numerous, but they are also in a wide variety of ⁹occupations. Federal government workers include investigators and program analysts, postal workers and immigration authorities, scientists and accountants, spies and soldiers. State governments hire receptionists and computer programmers, social workers and prison guards, game wardens and highway engineers, purchasing agents and tax auditors, physicians and attorneys, budget analysts and building maintenance crews. Local governments employ police officers and teachers, civil engineers and librarians, pathologists and sanitation workers, recreation directors and parking lot attendants. Few private companies even come close to matching the ¹⁰diversity of specializations in the public sector.

     —Public Personnel Management and Public Policy, 3rd. ed. by Dennis Dresang. (New York: Longman, 1999, p. 3).

		1. Labor-intensive means that an activity requires ________________ to do work.    a. machines   b. people
		2. The government depends on human resources—that is, public _______________.    a. laws   b. employees
		3. Public ____________ managers are in charge of human resources.    a. quality control   b. personnel
		4. A competent person does tasks _____________.    a. well   b. badly
		5. Public employers want their employees to work in an energetic, ______________, and ethical way.    a. creative   b. inefficient
		6. Failure to manage human resources effectively results in ___________ productivity.    a. low   b. high
		7. Seventeen percent of the national civilian labor force are government _____________.    a. employees   b. agencies
		8. About 20 percent of the labor force work for __________ organizations that have contracts with the government.    a. federal and local   b. private and not-for-profit
		9. Federal workers are in a variety of ____________; they include program analysts, postal workers, scientists, and spies, to name just a few.    a. occupations   b. investigations
		10. Three levels of the government discussed in the final paragraph are the federal government, the ______________ government, and the local government.    a. state   b. country