Quiz: What Do You Know About
 Effective Communication?

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The Web address of this quiz is http://sfhelp.org/02/evc-quiz.htm

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This is one of 150+ Web articles about improving personal, relationship, and family health and satisfactions. This brief introduction describes the site's purpose, author, and the best ways to use this information. Each article is part of a mosaic of related ideas, so the more you read, the more sense they'll all make.        This article is one of a series describing effective thinking, communicating, and problem-solving concepts. The series summarizes seven learnable communication (relationship) skills that are essential for building high-nurturance relationships and resolving internal and social conflicts effectively.         The unique guidebook Satisfactions (Xlibris.com, 2001) integrates the key Project-2 Web articles and resources in this nonprofit Web site, and provides many practical resources.                 Before continuing, stop and reflect - why are you reading this - what do you need?

       All adults and kids depend on their ability to think and communicate effectively to fill their personal and social needs. After more than 40 years' clinical research, I believe that typical adults - like you - are ineffective communicators, and don't know why or what's possible.

        Two tragic results are that (a) few people are motivated to learn how to greatly improve their communication skills and outcomes. That means that (b) typical kids grow up assuming that living with the results of ineffective thinking and communication is normal. They don't know what's possible! 

In this divorce-prevention Web site, Project 2 proposes basic concepts and seven skills that promote effective communication. This is one of several vital topics that adults and professionals need to learn for satisfying relationships and effective child-nurturance.

         This quiz can help you assess what you know - and need to learn - about communication basics. It's based on over 40 years' study and teaching effective communication skills to hundreds of adults and kids.

     Options:

• Expect to learn something valuable from using this quiz;

• Study this slide presentation on communication basics before or after taking this this quiz. If you have trouble viewing the slides, see this, or read the two-page text version;

• Study these Q&A items before or after the quiz, and use them for discussion starters;

• See how many of these common communication blocks are lowering your communication outcomes everyday;

• Print this quiz and make at least 30" of undistracted time to write in your answers. Or...

• Try answering each question out loud as you go, and/or...

• Try doing so with another interested person, like your partner. Also consider...

• Journaling about your thoughts and feelings as you answer - they're just as instructive as your answers!

        As a baseline, rate yourself: on a scale of 1 (“I know nothing about communication”) to 10 (“I could teach a college course on it”), rank your communication effectiveness now...

My general communication effectiveness with important adults and kids recently is ___ in calm times, and ___ in typical conflicts.

     Option: imagine that this is part of a test you and your mate would each have to pass to qualify for a marriage or child-conception license... My unique, practical guidebook Satisfactions - 7 relationship skills you need to know integrates the key Project-2 Web articles and worksheets in this site.

Communication-basics Quiz

        Challenge: answer each question before following the linked answer! Put your curser over words in bold red letters to read a brief comment.

1)  What is "communication"?

 

2)  What are the six needs all adults and kids try to fill by communicating, and which one  is always  present?

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3)  What two outcomes determine whether all people involved feel their communication is effective (vs. "open and honest")?

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4)  What does childhood nurturance have to do  with communication effectiveness?

 

5)  (a) How can I tell if my true Self is in charge of my thinking and communicating at any time; and (b) what do I do if s/he isn't?

6)  What are my options if my current communication needs don't match my communication partner's needs?

 

 

7)  What are the three "channels" all adults and kids use to send and receive their communication messages? What happens when the received messages on these channels don't match?

8)  What are the four messages we all automatically decode from each other in any communication exchange, and (b) which of these always determines our communication effectiveness?

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9)  What are the two most important factors that determine communication effectiveness in any situation?

10)  Why is it impossible for two people in a relationship to not communicate?

 

 

11)  (a) What are at least 10 common communication blocks, and (b) what can I do about each of them? (list separately)

 

 

12) (a) What are the 16 possible outcomes of any communication exchange, and (b) which is the only one (odds: ~6%) that allows both partners to feel "successful"? This concept is critical if you want to become fluent in identifying how often you communicate effectively in key situations and over time.

 

 

 

13)  (a) What are the seven related skills any adult can learn to improve their communication outcomes, and (b) how do the skills relate to each other? If you can't describe each skill, you're probably not using it.

14)  (a) What are four common "awareness zones" in each communication partners, and (b) which combination of them is required for effective communication outcomes?

15)  (a) What are at least 15 of the ~45 everyday factors I can learn to help me assess and improve my communication successes? Examples: "flooding," double messages, defocusing, interrupting, assuming (mind reading), intellectualizing, and generalizing (list separately). (b) Of these 15, which are the most important, and why?

 

 

 

16)  (a) What is a "Bill of Personal Rights," and (b) how can thoughtfully evolving my own Bill significantly improve my effectiveness at asserting and problem solving?

 

 

 

 

17)  (a) How can I identify fuzzy thinking, and (b) what can I do to reduce it in important relationships and situations?

 

 

18)  How do my and my partner's "emotion levels" affect our ability to hear each other clearly?

 

19)  (a) What's the vital difference between listening and listening with my heart? (b) How does listening well affect my physical health?

 

 

20)  What's the most effective choice I have with a communication partner who's too upset to hear me now?

 

21)  What are the keys to giving effective feedback and praise to strangers and loved ones?

 

 

22)  Why are effective communications usually harder to achieve at home than elsewhere?

 

 

23)  What's my gender got to do with how effective my social and intimate communications are?

 

 

24)  (a) What are the three or four parts to most interpersonal conflicts, (b) which one should I focus on first in key situations, and (c) which communication skill do I need to do that?

 

 

25)  (a) How can I spot internal conflicts and (b) usually resolve them?

 

 

26)  (a) What are the keys to effective (win-win) problem solving; and (b) which of the common alternatives do I use regularly?

 

 

27)  How can I (a) see below conscious surface needs (discomforts) to discern my primary needs, and (b) assert them effectively with others in a mutually-respectful way?

 

 

28)  What personal needs can only be filled by me, so it's useless to ask, expect, or demand that other people fill them?

 

 

29)  What's the vital difference between submission, assertion, and aggression, and which of these am I usually most comfortable with?

 

 

30)  What's the key to asserting my needs with others effectively, including with people I distrust, dislike, resent, and/or fear?

 

31)  How can I say "No" (assert my limits and boundaries) without feeling cold, selfish, anxious, apologetic, and/or guilty?

 

 

32)  (a) What are values conflicts, and (b) what's usually the best way to resolve them?

 

 

33)  (a) What are relationship triangles, and (b) how can I avoid and resolve them effectively?

 

 

34)  (a) What are communication sequences and patterns, and (b) why should I be aware of them with key people in my life?

 

 

35)  How can I graphically map (diagram) key communication sequences and patterns to spot and resolve problems inside or between me and any partner using the seven skills?

 

 

36)  (a) How can I express anger constructively to kids and adults, and (b) how can I respond effectively  to theirs?

 

 

37)  How can I learn to express hurt, frustration, and anger (confront) effectively, without undue anxiety (worry), guilt, and/or shame?

 

 

38)  (a) Why do I and others lie at times? (b) If I lie "too much," how can I reduce that safely? (c) If key others lie to me, can I do anything to reduce that?

 

39)  (a) What's the difference between requesting and demanding, and (b) how can I tell the difference in communicating with a partner?

 

 

40)  What are my communication strengths?

 

 

        Pause, breathe, and notice your thoughts and feelings with interest. Now try this again: on a scale of 1 (“I know nothing about communication”) to 10 (“I could teach a college course on it”)...

My general communication effectiveness with my mate or another important adult or child recently is __ in calm times, and __ in typical conflicts.

        Has anything changed?

        How did you do with this quiz? Can you better appreciate the premise that "most adults and many family-support professionals don't know what they don't know about effective communications?" How many of these questions could your partner answer now? Your ex mate/s? Key relatives? Older kids? If you all could answer all these questions clearly and spontaneously, what would that mean to your family?

        Did you learn anything about these questions in your early schooling? Do you think average modern schools teach the answers to these questions and why these thinking and communication basics are vitally important to people and societies?

     Are you modeling effective communication for the young people in your life? What if someone had coached you to learn the answers to these questions before you left home?

     Family Project 2 in this nonprofit Web site offers perspective on and answers to these questions, to help your family members fill more of your daily needs more often in mutually-satisfying ways. Doing this depends on your true Self leading your personality subselves most of the time (Project 1).

        To expand your communication knowledge and awareness, review...

• These slide presentations on effective communication and problem-solving basics. If you have trouble viewing the slides, see this;

• These examples of win-win and lose-lose conflict resolution,

• This inventory of common communication blocks,

• These common communication-process factors

• these communication tips and helpful communication phrases,

• how to map (diagram) an important communication sequence to see why it worked - or didn't,

• this inventory of conflict-resolution traits; and...

• these questions and answers on effective communication.  

Options: learn more about what you (need to) know for relationship success by studying...

• these premises about "relationship problems,"

• this life-skills quiz,

• this good-grief quiz,

• this stepfamily quiz, and...

• this stepfamily-myth inventory.

        Pause and reflect - why did you use this quiz - what did you need? Did you get what you needed? If not - what do you need now?

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Updated  July 02, 2008