阅读下面的材料，在空白处填入适当的词或括号内单词的适当形式。
Were you the first or the last child in your family? Or were you a middle or an only child? Some people think     matters where you were born in your family. But there are different ideas about what birth order means. Some people say that the oldest children,       are smart and strong-willed, are very likely   (succeed). The reason      this is simple. Parents have a lot of time for their first child and give him or her a lot of attention. An only child will succeed for    same reason.
What happens to the      children in the family? Middle children don’t get so much attention, so they don’t feel that important. If a family has many children, the middle one sometimes gets lost in the crowd. The youngest child,   , often gets special treatment. Often this child grows up to be funny. But a recent study saw things quite     (difference). The study found that first children believed in family rules. They didn’t take many chances in    lives. They usually  (follow) orders. Rules didn’t mean as much to later children in the family. They took chances and they often did better in life.