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For questions 1-8, read the text below and think of the word which best fits each gap. Use only one word in each gap.
Every biographer eventually confronts the same uncomfortable truth: however much material survives, the subject's inner life remains largely out of 1.. Letters and diaries offer tempting glimpses, but they were written for particular readers and 2. particular reasons, and they can mislead as easily as they reveal. A woman who sounds cheerful in letters to her mother may have been anything 3. happy. The biographer's task is to weigh such evidence without giving in 4. the urge to invent what cannot be known, while also avoiding the opposite danger of a dry list of dates and events. Some of the best biographies are those in 5. the author openly admits uncertainty, inviting readers to consider several possible explanations for a puzzling decision. 6. is rarer, and perhaps more valuable, is the biographer who resists the temptation to judge. It is all too easy, with the benefit of hindsight, to condemn people for failing to see 7. seems obvious to us now. A good biography does not excuse its subject's failings, but it does help us understand 8. a person might have come to act as they did.