Communication & Soft Skill Development

Question bank:
1.Effective communication skills are important for managers.
Why?
ANS: Effective communication skills are important for managers
because they can use their communication skills to set rules,
define employee roles, encourage employees to take their own
decisions, and obtain goals for their teams. That’s not all;
excellent communication skills also allow managers to increase
morale, productivity, and team unity easily and effectively.
2. Discuss the measures to be taken for effective
communication.
ANS:
3. Discuss briefly following types of communication barriers .
ANS:- Communication barriers implies any kind of hindrance in
the flow of communication ;i.e. when one party is not able to
get the message convey by the other party accurately , clearly
and intendedly .
a)Semantic:-
When communicating with the other persons, no matter
what kind of communication means is utilized, whether it is
formal or informal, it is vital to make use of appropriate words,
vocabulary and language; all kinds of communication should
reflect decency. Language and vocabulary that is used in
communication should be understandable to the persons; if a
person speaks only English and a word is used in Spanish then
he may or may not understand the word, for instance, if a
person speaks only English, then it could be a possibility that he
might have studied other languages such as Spanish or French.

b) Psycho Emotional:-
In the process of communication, it is vital to understand
each other’s mindset and mental capacity; this applies in every
case whether it is a professor giving a lecture or a conversation
between the employer and an employee. If someone is
communicating with the other individual or a group of
individuals with an attitude of disinterest or unwillingness then
the process of communication will not be effective. In this case,
it would have believed to be that attitude of the
communicators is inappropriate for the purpose of making the
process of communication effectual. It is therefore considered
crucial to overcome the psychological barriers.
 c) Organizational:-
This type of barriers develops due to the problem with
physical distance with the member with respect to their
functional specialization of tasks ,power ,authority and status
relationship ,value held and ownership of information.
d)Inter personal:-
This barrier occur due to inappropriate transaction of
words between tow or more people .the most common reasons
for interpersonal barriers are limited vocabulary , mismatch of
verbal and non verbal communication ,emotional mismatch
,cultural variation ,poor listening skill and noise in the channel .
4. Write short note on plan and biased-free English justifying
their role for an effective communication.
ANS:-Plan English is good for effective communication because
more people is able to understand your message , its save time
and personal resources.
5. “Listening prevents mis-communication” . Justify it.
6.What are the four types of listening .Explain them briefly
with suitable example .
ANS:- There are four type of listening which are Appreciative
listening , empathetic listening , comprehensive listening and
critical listening .
Appreciative listening: Appreciative listening is a way of
listening in which someone actively goes in search of certain
auditory information that this person personally appreciates or
likes. Someone may also practice appreciative listening if it
contributes to achieving a goal or meeting a need. For example,
one uses appreciative listening when listening to good music,
meditation seminars, poetry, audiobooks or a speech from a
person with an excellent reputation.
Empathetic listening:- When we listen empathetically, we go
beyond sympathy to seek a truer understand how others are
feeling. This requires excellent discrimination and close
attention to the nuances of emotional signals. When we are
being truly empathetic, we actually feel what they are feeling.
COMPREHENSIVE LISTENING
The next step beyond discriminating between different sound
and sights is to make sense of them. To comprehend the
meaning requires first having a lexicon of words at our
fingertips and also all rules of grammar and syntax by which we
can understand what others are saying.
CRITICAL LISTENING
Critical listening is listening in order to evaluate and judge,
forming opinion about what is being said. Judgment includes
assessing strengths and weaknesses, agreement and approval.
This form of listening requires significant real-time cognitive
effort as the listener analyzes what is being said, relating it to
existing knowledge and rules, whilst simultaneously listening to
the ongoing words from the speaker.
7. Discusses some causes of poor listening.
ANS:- Low concentration can be the result of various
psychological or physical situations such as visual or auditory
distractions, physical discomfort, inadequate volume, lack of
interest in the subject material, stress, or personal bias.
When listeners give equal weight to everything they hear, it
makes it difficult to organize and retain the information they
need. When the audience is trying too hard to listen, they often
cannot take in the most important information they need.
Jumping ahead can be detrimental to the listening experience;
when listening to a speaker's message, the audience overlooks
aspects of the conversation or makes judgments before all of
the information is presented.
Confirmation bias is the tendency to pick out aspects of a
conversation that support one's own preexisting beliefs and
values.
A flashy speech can actually be more detrimental to the overall
success and comprehension of the message because a speech
that focuses on style offers little in the way of substance.
Recognizing obstacles ahead of time can go a long way toward
overcoming them.
8. Discusses the strategy that you would adopt to become a
better listener.
9. Witte short note on the following types of speaking
A. Reading from manuscript:- Manuscript speaking is the
word-for-word iteration of a written message. In a manuscript
speech, the speaker maintains his or her attention on the
printed page except when using visual aids.
The advantage to reading from a manuscript is the exact
repetition of original words. As we mentioned at the beginning
of this chapter, in some circumstances this can be extremely
important. For example, reading a statement about your
organization’s legal responsibilities to customers may require
that the original words be exact. In reading one word at a time,
in order, the only errors would typically be mispronunciation of
a word or stumbling over complex sentence structure.

B. Reciting from memory:- The key is to remember

vividly and connect with the audience while speaking. You may
need to memorize a brief speech, scripture, or perhaps a poem
as your part in a presentation, rather than being given a
manuscript to read . The advantage to memorization is that it
enables the speaker to maintain eye contact with the audience
throughout the speech. Being free of notes means that you can
move freely around the stage and use your hands to make
gestures.
C. Speaking in prompt:- On many different occasions
you may be called upon to speak with little or no notice before
hand. For an impromptu speech, you may have a minute or two
to prepare in your mind before you speak. Additionally, you
may be called on to read a letter, scripture, or article to a group
without preparation. These speeches require organizing what
you’re going to say instead of just jumping into it head first
D. Speaking extemporaneously:- Extemporaneous is
the most natural of all methods of prepared delivery where you
can successfully achieve a more natural conversation with the
audience. Here you can prepare and practice the speech, but
you don’t have to go directly from the paper. You can improvise
a little and have a better connection with the audience.
10. Discuss the 3 main elements or aspects of effective
speaking?
ANS:- There are three main elements of effective speaking
 a)The words you use :-It is important to use simple
word , because if you use complicated word , your
audience will come back to the words that you used and
 double-check what you might have meant. It is therefore
important to choose carefully, especially when you are
saying something important. The words you choose will be
different if you are talking to 200 people at a conference, a
trusted colleague, your boss, or your children. You need to
think about your audience’s overall level of understanding
of the subject, and also the type of language that you
using . Using shorter sentences also creates urgency.If you
cannot explain something in simple terms, you have
probably not understood it yourself. This is particularly
important if your audience are not all native speakers of
the language.
b) Your voice :- Your voice can reveal as much about your
personal history as your appearance. The sound of a voice
and the content of speech can provide clues to an
individual's emotional state.
 For instance, if self-esteem is low, it may be reflected
by hesitancy in the voice. A shy person may speak quietly,
but someone who is confident in themselves will be more
likely to have command of their voice and clarity of
speech.
 It is worth taking time to improve your command
over your voice, especially if you find it hard to speak in
public. It can even help to boost your confidence!
It is important to get used to the sound of your own voice.
Most people are more relaxed in a private situation, particularly
at home, where there are no pressures to conform to any other
social rules and expectations. This is not the case in public
situations when there are all sorts of influences exerted upon
the way people speak.
c)Your other non-verbal communication, particularly body
language:- your body language is also important. This
includes how you stand, your facial expressions, the way you
use your hands to emphasise your speech, and even whether
and with whom you make eye contact.
 The importance of congruence
 Perhaps the most important aspect of effective
communication is congruence.
For communication to be effective, your non-verbal
communication needs to reinforce your words: the two must
say the same thing. Non-verbal communication is much harder
to disguise than verbal—if you see that someone’s body
language is giving a different message from their words, it pays
to listen to the non-verbal communication first as it is more
likely to reflect their real views
11.Body language plays a crucial role for a good speach
delivery and in general in any kind of public speaking.
12. Differentiate the following giving suitable examples:
A. Scheming & scanning:-
ANS:- Skimming is a way of reading something in a fast manner
to grasp the main points ,where scanning means to look
carefully and quickly at the written material to locate
something .In skimming the reader is not familiar with the text
and in scanning the reader knows what he searching for. In
skimming you have to read out the maximum content in
minimum time and in scanning you have to find out the
required data.
B. Scanning & inferential reading:-
13. Discuss the stages that you're supposed to follow for an
effective reading.
ANS:- Pre-Reading
In the pre-reading stage, a person prepares herself or himself
for the things that they are going to read. In addition, according
to research previewing the text can increase the reader’s
involvement with the text. These are:
Setup a purpose- Decide a written or mental goal for your
reading. Moreover, this purpose will help you to locate the
specific information or idea that you need to summarize the
text.
Make Predictions- Use the title or sub-heading to generate an
idea about the book or text. Also, try to figure out how the
writer will try to communicate the topic. Besides, prediction
makes you curious about what the topic is.

Questions- Ask some questions before you start reading, which

according to you the text will answer.

Build Knowledge- In this first of all think about the topic and
then acquaint you with the content. Also, make yourself
familiar with the language, format, topic, issue, and ideas that it
will cover. In addition, in what way the language and
organization of the text are used for specific purposes. Besides,
the purpose of writing can be describing, informing,
persuading, interacting, finding out, entertaining, recording,
and regulating.
Scan the Vocabulary- Quickly look over the text for new words
and then try to find their meaning from the context.
Skimming- It is a process in which a person just do a surface
level reading and pay attention to the visuals, sub-headings,
and format to govern if the text gives the information it needs
or not.
Scanning- It simply means that do a quick reading o the text
and look for keywords, ideas, phrases, visuals, subheadings,
and format.

Through Reading:-
It means to look for clues in the text to obtain the author’s
meaning and purpose for strengthening the skills of the reader.
The order of reading- The order of the text should be according
to the order that we mention below. Also, it helps you to get
the universal meaning before you go through the whole text in
details. Besides, sometimes it happens that people after going
through this order does not feel to read the whole text.
Moreover, the order is:

Heading or title
Sub-headings
Head Paragraph
Final Paragraph
The first sentence of every paragraph
Entire text
Joining different elements of the text- Pay attention to what the
writer/author is saying and how she/he expresses it. Also, what
is the clear and secret meaning in the text? Try to figure out the
sense of the author in relation to the topic.

Guess- When you get stuck on a word then try to read the
whole text and guess its meaning accordingly. This will help you
to learn new ways to use a word.
Silent reading- It is the quality of good readers that they read
silently. Besides, reading aloud slows you down. Also, it forces
you to listen to the sounds of words rather than their meaning.
Getting answers- Look for the answer to the question that you
asked in the pre-reading stage. Moreover, it helps you to
determine to predict the text.

Post Reading:-
In this simply go to the pre-reading stages and try to fill the
gaps that you make according to your assumption. In addition,
prepare a detailed sketch of what you have learned and
compare it with prediction.
Evaluate - This help in carrying out how effective the writing as
if the writer was successful at its an accomplishment or not.
Map- Create a visual presentation of the text and the different
ideas in it with the main idea in the center.
Discuss- Analyze the language, content, and pattern of the text.
Initial prediction- Check whether your initial prediction was
right or not.
Pre-reading question- Try to answer your entire pre-reading
question.
14.Briefly describe the following types of writing
• Descriptive
• Narrative
• Persuasive
• Expository
• Argumentative
15. Discuss the steps of writing process.
16."The general purpose of public speaking is to inform,
persuade and entertain." - justify.
17. Why do u feel public speaking is an important act which
one should take?
18. What are the factors or elements that are to be considered
for an effective public speaking?
19. What do you mean by the term ethical communication?
20. Discuss some guidelines for ethical speaking.
21. What do you understand by the term Plagerism? Explain 3
types of Plagerism.
22. Discuss the strategy to overcome the problem of
Plagerism.

Q.1. What is the difference between CC and BCC when sending

an Email?

Ans. When you CC people on an email, the CC list is visible to all

other recipients. For example, if you CC bob@example.com and
jake@example.com on an email, Bob and Jake will both know that the
other received the email, as well.

BCC stands for “blind carbon copy.” Unlike with CC, no one but the
sender can see the list of BCC recipients. For example, if you have
bob@example.com and jake@example.com in the BCC list, neither Bob nor
Jake will know that the other received the email.

Someone on the BCC list can see everything else, including the CC
list and the contents of the email. However, the BCC list is secret—
no one can see this list except the sender. If a person is on the BCC
list, they’ll see only their own email on the BCC list.

Q.2. Explain few Email Etiquette.

Q.3. What is the importance of a cover letter in a CV ?
Ans. Many people include a cover letter when they submit a CV
during their job search, or when they are inquiring about potential
openings because:
 A cover letter allows you to introduce yourself and your job candidacy to
a company, whether through the document itself or via a contact in your
network.

 It provides you a chance to display your personality while showing key

skills and knowledge of the company or person you’re sending it to

 A strong cover letter provides context for the skills and experiences
present on your resume, rather than repeating them. It tells a story
about your career objectives and aspirations.
Q.4. Discuss the different types of CV.
Ans. The Chronological CV
A chronological CV focuses on presenting the candidate's experience
on an employer-by-employer basis, with the posts being listed in
reverse chronological order. Chronological CVs should also contain
a brief personal statement at the front which sets out the key skills
and strengths of the candidate. This is the most common type of
CV.
The Functional CV
• Unlike a chronological CV, a functional CV places the emphasis on your
skills and expertise rather than the chronology of your employment to date.
Although not generally the preferred choice by most recruiters, some senior
executive positions would require that a functional CV accompany a
chronological one so that their key skills and achievements can be clearly
identified.

Q.5. Discuss the strategy to overcome barriers to listening.

Ans. Minimize distractions.
Prioritize listening over speaking.

Reduce outside noise.

Practice reflecting instead of deflecting.

Ask questions.

Listen fully before giving advice.

Q.6. How are Critical Thinking and Public speaking

interrelated?
Ans. Being able to think through problems and analyze the
potential costs and benefits of solutions is an essential part of
critical thinking and of public speaking aimed at persuading
others. Both require focus, organized thinking, soundness of
evidence and knowing the difference between fact and opinion
Q.7.What are the three types of Plagiarism? Explain.
Q.8. Discuss the strategy to overcome Plagiarism.
Q.9. What are the aspects of an effective speech?
Q.10. What are the prerequisites of an effective
presentation?
Q.11. Discuss the guidelines to be followed to prepare a PPT.
Q.12.What is an ‘Audience Analysis’.
Q. 13. What skills are judged during a group discussion?
Q. 14. Mention the parts of a business letter in the correct
order.
Q.15.Discuss the different types of audience analysis.
Q.16. State few guidelines for preparing effective visual aids
for a presentation.
Q.17. “The speaker is an important visual aid during a
presentation”. Elaborate.
Q.18. Discuss the do’s and don’ts of an Interview.
Q.19. Discuss the steps followed in a GD.
Q.20.What is the difference between a structured and a Semi-
Structured interview? Explain with appropriate examples.
Q.21.Why is body language important during an interview?