The way people interpret a smile may depend on the purpose smiles serve in a
particular culture.
Marion is comparing the sales volume in her region to the sales volumes in seven other
regions in the country. She could choose a bar chart to illustrate this data in a visual.
A common reason for not reporting ethical misconduct is loyalty of employees to
colleagues, managers, or the company.
A visual that contains numbers and words arrayed in rows and columns is a figure.
It is legal to ask about a candidate’s marital status because it indicates how many hours
one will be investing at work.
Pre-writing is a mandatory activity followed by all writers to get ready to write the main
document.
To check the tone of a message, one should check the draft carefully for positive
emphasis and you-attitude.
An audience’s reaction can be influenced by whether it has been warned of possible
negatives.
First interviews have a purpose of screening candidates instead of finding someone to
hire.
If a candidate is asked a question which is improper or illegal, he/she has the right to
refuse answering the question.
A successful intercultural communicator is sensitive to verbal and nonverbal behavior.
Color used in visuals may send signals that you do not intend because different cultures
associate different meanings with different colors.
Citation and documentation are used in lieu of quotation marks.
The key to handling stress interviews is to stay calm and maintain one’s sense of humor.
If audience benefits do not use you-attitude in a message, a message is likely to be
ineffective.
It is important to keep a message as short and crisp as possible when an audience
considers a message unimportant.
While creating messages regarding layoffs and firings, it is good to state the reasons in
a way that is clear but does not expose the organization to legal liabilities.
The revision process should always be undertaken after the editing process.
When conveying bad news to a superior, one should recommend a way to deal with the
problem.
The best way to organize a negative message depends on the audience and on the
severity of the negative information.
If the reader has to study the labels to get the right picture, the visual is unethical even if
the labels are accurate.
Hypothetical questions that ask people to imagine what they would do generally yield
more reliable answers than questions about critical incidents or key past events.
Wordiness means using fewer words than the meaning requires.
It is essential to place material in the appendix instead of the body of the report if it is
crucial to one’s proof.
Time sinks help people manage time more efficiently.
In a budget for a proposal, one should avoid listing out less obvious costs such as
overheads.
Paraphrasing content, offering to help, and asking for help are examples of
acknowledgment responses.
If your application is prospecting, you can paste your traditional letter into your e-mail.
While refusing requests within an organization, it is important to use one’s knowledge
of the organization’s culture.
Fund-raising appeals require limited strategy and information in order to achieve its
primary and secondary purposes.
While using big words, one should ensure that they are used correctly because they
otherwise may just distance one from the audience and increase the risk of
miscommunication.
If you take your blog off-line while you are job searching, then employers won’t be able
to find it.
Smartphones allow users to conduct word processing, learn their next tasks, and update
a job’s status.
Good blogs present their content in ways that inspire conversations and encourage
readers to comment and then to share the information.
Payback reports provide calculations of the point at which a new capital investment will
pay for itself.
Skills in collaborative writing and conflict resolution help in team work.
In order to prevent the audience from ignoring deadlines that seem arbitrary, one should
show the cost of delaying action.
The purpose of a job application letter is to get an interview for a job rather than the job
itself.
Headings cannot be complete sentences because it will make them lengthy and
ineffective.
Which of the following is recommended when including a career objective on the rsum
of a recent college graduate?
A. Career objectives should be elaborate – six lines at most.
B. Career objectives should be clarified at the top of the rsum rather than in the cover
letter.
C. Make it clear that an entry-level position is unacceptable.
D. Tailor the career objective to a specific job.
E. Write the career objective statement by putting the job title or field under your name.
Which of the following is true of apologies in a negative message in business
communication?
A. They should not take timing into account because it is irrelevant.
B. They should be an integral part of all negative messages.
C. They should always be placed at the end of a message.
D. They should be said twice in a message in order to sound sincere.
Sally and Ryan are working professionals and have hectic work schedules with no time
for entertainment during weekdays. However, on Saturdays, they try out new
restaurants and make sure that they unwind and ease out their week’s stress over dinner.
Which of the following would help a restaurant appeal to Sally and Ryan’s
requirements?
A. Vegetarian food
B. Popular live band
C. Quick serving dinners
D. No tipping policy
E. Economic food
Which of the following is true of negative messages?
A. They are no longer a part of business and administrative communication.
B. They comprise of offer letters, appointment letters, and sales brochures.
C. They have a single purpose of eliminating future communication on the issue.
D. They can never be restructured to create a positive feeling.
E. They should make readers feel their request has been taken seriously.
Which of the following are good writers most likely to do?
A. Stick to one basic strategy that works for them
B. Start editing before a draft is complete
C. Realize that the first draft can be revised
D. Avoid breaking big jobs into small chunks
E. Use and follow rules rigidly
Which of the following should be undertaken to make a piece of writing easier to read?
A. Using a constant sentence structure and length
B. Using wordiness to add substance to a document
C. Using verbs to carry the weight of a sentence
D. Ensuring that a document only uses a passive voice
E. Using unfamiliar words to draw the attention of readers
Carole Simpson works in Switzerland where most companies have a culture which
focuses on undertaking all tasks according to clock time and their work schedule. They
also undertake one task at a time instead of multitasking. Based on this scenario, which
of the following cultures is Switzerland most likely to be characterized by?
A. Monochronic
B. Collectivist
C. Polychronic
D. Ethnocentric
E. Xenocentric
According to usability consultant, Jakob Nielsen, what does an F-shaped pattern
indicate when viewing web pages?
A. The centre of a page must contain the most important information.
B. The bottom left half of a page is where a reader starts reading.
C. The centre of a page is where an audience starts reading a document.
D. The top of a page must contain the most important information.
E. The left side of a page is always skipped by a reader.
You are helping your friend Catherine create a rsum for a law-related position. She has
many qualifications in both her work history and her education. She has been working
for three years part time and worked for two years before that full time. Which one of
the following five things should Catherine omit from her rsum?
A. Law clerk two summers ago
B. Crowned homecoming queen in junior year
C. Regional winner of a math contest in high school
D. Passed the CPA exam four years ago
E. National finalist of the North American Debating Championship
In a _____ sample, each person in the population theoretically has an equal chance of
being chosen.
A. random
B. biased
C. convenience
D. judgment
E. quota
Which of the following is true of the voting process?
A. It is a short and quick process.
B. It ensures people in the minority are content.
C. It makes all participants committed to the plan.
D. It takes a long time to arrive at a consensus.
E. It leaves people in the majority dissatisfied.
_____ refers to checking if a document is free from typographical errors.
A. Revising
B. Brainstorming
C. Freewriting
D. Proofreading
E. Clustering
Which of the following is undertaken in a formation phase of a task team?
A. Establishing ground rules for team members
B. Seeking numerous solutions to a problem
C. Undertaking most tasks during the project
D. Finalizing implementation of tasks
E. Debating solutions before arriving at one
Which of the following should not be included in a rsum?
A. The word “I"
B. Gerunds
C. Verbs
D. Details in numbers
E. Key words
Which of the following should be undertaken in an effective meeting?
A. Ensure the leader avoids summarizing consensus if the group does not formally vote
B. Avoid making purposes explicit if meetings combine two or more purposes
C. Set down informal rules if the meeting is long or the group very large
D. Make information on the agenda specific so that participants can come prepared
E. Use an omnibus motion to help a group approve items one at a time
Daniel Perez is writing a proposal on “Relief Efforts for Flood Victims in Laos.” In the
proposal he states that he will gather information by interviewing flood victims and
government officials. He also mentions that he will be contacting news reporters who
have covered significant information on the catastrophe. Which of the following
sections will this information be covered under?
A. Topics to investigate
B. Methods/procedure
C. Audience
D. Qualifications/resources
E. Problem/opportunity
While using lists to create white space, it is important to:
A. ensure all paragraphs comprise of not more than two lines.
B. make the first paragraph as lengthy as possible.
C. use bullets when sequence needs to be followed.
D. make all items non-parallel for better understanding.
E. use tabs or indents to align items vertically.
Which of the following is true of acknowledgement responses?
A. They are the same in all cultures.
B. They may comprise of smiling or frowning.
C. They help carry a message that one is talking.
D. They involve thinking about ideas.
E. They involve performing a task.
Which of the following is a negative action that can hurt a team’s product and process?
A. Summarizing
B. Synthesizing
C. Withdrawing
D. Evaluating
E. Coordinating
Which of the following is true of letter length for a job application letter?
A. If your letter is a bit over a page, you cannot use slightly smaller margins to get more
on the page.
B. If your letter is a bit over a page, you cannot use a type size that’s one point smaller
to get more on the page.
C. Employers don’t want longer letters, but they will read them if the letter is well
written.
D. The letter length should be a minimum of one or two paragraphs.
E. If you have excellent material that will not fit on one page, you can use it as long as
you have at least 3-4 lines of body text on the second page.
The _____ of an interview lasts for about two to five minutes where good interviewers
will try to set the interviewee at ease and ask an introduction about them.
A. opening
B. feedback
C. confutation
D. body
E. close
Full justification should be used when:
A. one cannot use proportional typefaces.
B. one wants to use as few pages as possible.
C. one wants establish an informal look.
D. one has a huge amount of content to be displayed.
E. one wants to have lines ending in different places.
To organize short informative briefings, one should:
A. give all the reasons in favor of something, then those against it.
B. explain the symptoms of the problem, and identify its causes.
C. start with the past, move to the present, and then the future.
D. discuss three aspects of a topic or issue.
George Banks recently attended a team meeting which required participants to discuss
and share ideas on ways to increase sales of the company’s eco-friendly line of clothing.
Banks’ behavior throughout the meeting was considered unproductive. Which of the
following negative actions did he most likely undertake?
A. Clowning
B. Synthesizing
C. Summarizing
D. Checking feelings
E. Coordinating
Which of the following is the best way to handle the situation when all your work
experience is in your family’s business?
A. List your family members as references, but in your letter of application stress that
they were just as hard on you as they would have been if you had not been related.
B. Do not list the name of the company if it contains your family name.
C. List the company you worked for on the rsum; name as a reference a supervisor,
client, or vendor who can talk knowledgeably about your work; and be prepared to
answer questions about why you are now leaving the company.
D. Proceed as you would even if you were not related since it does not matter that you
worked with relatives.
E. Do not mention that the company you worked for was a family business.
Which of the following is a similarity between oral and written presentations?
A. Both use visuals to clarify or explain a material.
B. Both focus the audience’s attention to specific points.
C. Both take the same time to get a response from an audience.
D. Both present extensive, complex data with ease.
Which of the following statements shows a negative connotation, making the writer
sound less confident?
A. Courses in European and American literature influenced me to write a thesis on
them.
B. Courses in European and American literature have taught me to recognize and to
write good copy.
C. Courses in European and American literature helped me realize the recurrence of
certain events.
D. Courses in European and American literature helped me understand their
significance and influence on contemporary writers.
E. Courses in European and American literature made me learn an excessive amount
about writing.
Leah Ramos recently gave a presentation on “Milestone Achieved and Lessons Learnt
from the Warren and Co. Project.” Her presentation had a visual appeal and provided
crucial information that was important to the growth of the organization. However, she
shifted from one topic to another too quickly and spoke in a monotonous tone which
made the session slightly boring. Which of the following do these characteristics
indicate?
A. Networking skills
B. Conversational style
C. Conflict Resolution
D. Acknowledgement response
E. Active listening
Which of the following is an advantage of using closed rather than open questions in a
survey?
A. Closed questions allow researchers to probe the complexities of a subject.
B. Closed questions are faster for subjects to answer and easier for researchers to score.
C. Closed questions allow subjects to give any possible answer and do not lock the
subject into any sort of response.
D. One can improve the quality of open questions by conducting a pretest with closed
questions to find categories that matter to respondents.
E. Analyzing the responses from closed questions is usually less straightforward than
from open questions.
Which of the following is an example of a primary audience?
A. An attorney who uses company documents as evidence of the organization’s culture
and practices
B. A supervisor who controls the power to decide whether or not to send a message to
other audiences
C. A company president who reads minutes of departmental meetings to stay informed,
even though he plays no direct role
D. A client group who will decide whether or not to purchase a product based on a sales
proposal
E. A board of directors who do not have the power to stop a message but will use its
evaluation to monitor future actions
Which of the following is a nervous mannerism and should be avoided during an
interview?
A. Smiling while entering the room
B. Nodding during the interaction
C. Repeating verbal spacers
D. Sitting upright in a chair
E. Looking at the interviewer while talking
What is an elimination of alternatives pattern of organizing information?
What should you do in the last paragraph of a job letter?
What is the purpose of visual communications expert, Charles Kostelnick’s four levels
of design?
What does groupthink mean?
What are passive verbs and impersonal expressions? When should they be used in a
message?
Olivia is preparing a proposal on a marketing plan for new line of leather boots.
How can body language be used to communicate one’s feelings?
Tom needs to give a presentation to the campaign manager of his project to convince
him that Internet media is the best medium to promote the upcoming campaign on
Child Rights. What kind of a presentation should he be giving?
What are some guidelines one needs to follow for an interview through
videoconferencing?
What are competitive proposals and how are they different from noncompetitive
proposals?
When should a buffer be used?
Explain with the help of an example, what the problem section of a proposal deals with.
Describe the different types of reports that can be either information, analytical, or
recommendation reports, depending on the particular situation.
What are some points to remember when one proofreads a document?
What are spatial, functional and chronological patterns of organizing information?
What activities does the planning process involve?
Dawn Rivera is joining a new organization next week as a communication executive.
What sections do rsums commonly include?
Discuss how a watchdog audience is different from a gatekeeper and an auxiliary
audience.
