Unit 2: Improving Skills - Practice Quiz

1 What does the term time management most directly refer to?

2 In the Eisenhower Matrix, tasks are prioritized based on which two dimensions?

3 What is the main purpose of creating a to-do list?

4 The Pomodoro Technique involves working in focused intervals typically separated by:

5 What does it mean to procrastinate?

6 What is the primary goal of a win-win negotiation?

7 In negotiation, what does the acronym BATNA stand for?

8 Which behavior best supports successful negotiation?

9 What is a compromise in a negotiation?

10 Why is preparation important before a negotiation?

11 What is generally the best first step when dealing with a difficult person?

12 What does empathy mean in the context of handling difficult people?

13 Which of these is an example of an assertive response?

14 What is active listening when dealing with difficult behavior?

15 Why is it useful to focus on the problem rather than the person during conflict?

16 What is the main purpose of knowing your audience before a presentation?

17 Which of the following is a good use of visual aids in a presentation?

18 What is the recommended structure of a typical presentation?

19 Which technique helps reduce nervousness before presenting?

20 Why is eye contact important during a presentation?

21 A manager lists tasks as urgent-important, important-not urgent, urgent-not important, and neither. According to the Eisenhower Matrix, which quadrant should be scheduled rather than done immediately or delegated?

22 An employee spends the first hour of each day answering low-value emails before starting a critical report. Which principle best explains why tackling the report first would improve output?

23 A student notices that a task expands to fill however much time is allotted. Assigning tighter deadlines increases focus. This observation is best described by:

24 Using the Pomodoro technique, a person works in 25-minute intervals with 5-minute breaks. After completing four intervals, they should take a longer break. What is the primary psychological benefit of these structured breaks?

25 A team leader keeps switching between three projects, losing time each switch. What term describes this productivity loss, and what is the best remedy?

26 During a salary negotiation, a candidate knows the lowest offer they will accept before walking away. In negotiation theory, this threshold is called their:

27 Two parties have overlapping acceptable ranges: the buyer will pay up to $500 and the seller will accept as low as $400. The range from $400 to $500 is known as the:

28 A negotiator opens with an ambitious but justifiable price, which pulls the final agreement in their favor. This tactic exploits which cognitive bias?

29 In principled negotiation (Getting to Yes), which approach is recommended to reach durable agreements?

30 A supplier has several other buyers ready to purchase, giving them a strong fallback if talks fail. This strong alternative strengthens their negotiating power and is called their:

31 During a tense negotiation, one party expands the deal by adding an issue the other side values highly but they value little, then trades it away. This value-creating tactic is known as:

32 A colleague repeatedly makes sarcastic remarks in meetings instead of voicing concerns directly. This behavior is best classified as:

33 When confronting a coworker about missed deadlines, which framing is most likely to reduce defensiveness?

34 A team member becomes verbally aggressive during a disagreement. Which response best applies emotional regulation to de-escalate the situation?

35 An employee constantly disagrees and blocks decisions in group settings. Applying active listening first is useful primarily because it:

36 According to the DESC model for handling difficult conversations, what does the "D" stand for?

37 A manager faces a chronic complainer who never proposes solutions. Which strategy most effectively redirects the interaction?

38 A speaker structures a talk as "Tell them what you'll say, say it, then tell them what you said." This classic technique improves audience retention primarily through:

39 A presenter feels intense anxiety before speaking. Which technique is a research-supported way to reduce this physiological arousal in the moment?

40 A designer fills each slide with dense paragraphs of text. Applying the principle of cognitive load, the better approach is to:

41 A manager consistently completes urgent-but-unimportant tasks while important-but-non-urgent work (like strategic planning) is perpetually delayed. According to the Eisenhower Matrix, what is the most accurate diagnosis of this pattern's root cause?

42 A knowledge worker applies the Pareto Principle and finds that 20% of tasks yield 80% of value. After optimizing to focus only on those tasks, output value plateaus rather than continuing to rise. What is the most sound interpretation?

43 Parkinson's Law states work expands to fill available time. A team lead shortens a project deadline to force efficiency, but quality drops sharply and rework erases the time saved. What does this reveal about naive application of Parkinson's Law?

44 A student uses timeboxing but repeatedly overruns each box, then abandons the schedule entirely by midday. Which underlying planning error is most likely responsible?

45 Two employees have identical task lists. One batches similar tasks (e.g., all emails together); the other interleaves task types throughout the day. The batcher reports higher throughput. What cognitive mechanism best explains the difference?

46 In a negotiation, Party A has a strong BATNA but reveals it too early and in aggressive terms. The deal collapses despite objectively favorable terms for both. What negotiation dynamic best explains the failure?

47 A buyer opens with an extreme but not absurd anchor. The seller, aware of anchoring bias, wants to neutralize it. Which counter-move most effectively resets the negotiation range?

48 During an integrative negotiation, both parties claim the same fixed resource, appearing to be at an impasse. A skilled negotiator uncovers that each values different underlying interests. What technique most directly converts this into a win-win?

49 A negotiator sets an ambitious target price but never defines a reservation point. Mid-negotiation, under time pressure, they accept a deal worse than their walk-away alternative would have been. What structural flaw caused this?

50 In cross-cultural negotiation, a negotiator from a low-context culture interprets a high-context counterpart's indirect 'we will consider it' as tentative agreement, and proceeds accordingly. The deal later falls apart. What is the core error?

51 A colleague habitually uses passive-aggressive comments in meetings. A team member responds by publicly confronting the hostility directly each time, yet the behavior escalates. Why might direct public confrontation be counterproductive here?

52 When dealing with a chronically hostile individual, an expert advises separating the person from the problem. In practice, what does this most precisely require?

53 A team member repeatedly plays the 'victim' to deflect accountability. A leader who over-empathizes finds the pattern intensifies. What best explains why excessive empathy backfires with chronic victim-stance behavior?

54 During a heated conflict, one party's amygdala-driven 'fight or flight' response is triggered, impairing reasoning. Which intervention is most grounded in the neuroscience of emotional regulation for de-escalation?

55 A manager distinguishes between a 'difficult person' and a 'person having a difficult moment.' Why is this distinction critical for choosing a response strategy?

56 A presenter front-loads a slide deck with dense data, then delivers key recommendations only at the very end. Audience recall of the recommendation is poor. Which combination of cognitive principles best explains this?

57 A presenter reads bullet-point-laden slides aloud verbatim. Audience comprehension drops compared to a version with minimal slides and spoken narration. Which principle from multimedia learning theory explains this?

58 A speaker faces a hostile audience skeptical of their conclusion. Which structuring strategy is most likely to reduce resistance and improve persuasion?

59 A presenter with strong content receives feedback that they seem untrustworthy despite accurate information. Analysis of Mehrabian's findings on communication suggests the likely cause. What is the most defensible interpretation?

60 A presenter uses a compelling narrative structure but includes a statistic that contradicts the story's emotional arc. Audiences remember the story but misreport the statistic. What does this illustrate about narrative persuasion?