Final Practice Exam

An illustrative chatbot labels the line "A new coffee shop opened downtown, and a month later parking tickets rose, so the coffee shop caused the rise" a weak analogy, "because it compares two situations and assumes the shop caused the change." It also calls a speaker's proportionate photo of an empty food-pantry shelf an appeal-to-emotion fallacy. Select every problem with the chatbot's answer.

Select every option that applies.

• The line is sound, since tickets did rise after the opening
• The label is wrong; the line commits false cause
• The explanation merges two different fallacies into one
• The line should have been labeled a straw man
• The photo is legitimate pathos, not a fallacy

An illustrative speaker's source reports that adding reminder signs next to recycling bins raised how often people used the bins but did not show a significant drop in contamination. The speaker plans to say only, "Reminder signs clean up recycling." What is the problem?

Select one.

• It leaves out half the finding and claims a contamination drop the source did not show
• Nothing, since a short line is easier for listeners to remember later
• The line needs a louder delivery so that listeners notice the finding
• The line belongs in the conclusion, where it would serve as the clincher

In an illustrative study-group call, one member keeps saying mm-hm while reading messages on another screen, and afterward cannot say which chapter the group assigned to them. Which barrier is this, and which active-listening habit would expose it?

Select one.

• Prejudging, fixed by holding off on judgment until the end
• Pseudolistening, fixed by focusing and then paraphrasing
• Information overload, fixed by keeping short and lean notes
• Semantic noise, fixed by asking the speaker to define terms

Asked to rewrite "Submission of all assignments is required to be completed by students prior to the deadline established in the course schedule" for a spoken welcome, an illustrative chatbot returns "The completion and submission of all assigned work by students is expected in advance of the deadlines established within the course schedule." Which statement best describes the rewrite?

Select one.

• It is still written style: a long sentence, no second person, and abstract nouns
• It is ready to deliver, since its grammar is clean and its tone more formal
• It is in oral style, since it moved the word students closer to the front of the sentence
• It is vivid, since completion and submission are stronger nouns

During an illustrative fundraiser pitch for a youth swim team, a volunteer cites a national study that a chatbot described, complete with a title and a journal. Afterward, no one can locate the study anywhere. What is the most serious problem with the pitch?

Select one.

• Plagiarism
• A missing transition
• Fabrication
• Semantic noise

An illustrative student lists the outlining rules the course teaches before revising an outline. Which of these are among those rules? Select all that apply.

Select every option that applies.

• Parallelism
• Internal preview
• Division
• Subordination
• Spatial order
• Coordination

Asked "What is the best way to spend a free afternoon on campus?", an illustrative speaker tells a long story about a club fair and states the actual answer only in the closing sentence. Which classic misconception does the answer show?

Select one.

• Impromptu confused with extemporaneous
• The point buried at the end
• Three frames used in one answer
• "I don't know" treated as a failure

In an illustrative robotics-club meeting, a member hears the leader mention the gear ratio over the whir of a test motor, then closes a laptop to give the update full focus. Closing the laptop is which stage of the listening process?

Select one.

• Responding
• Understanding
• Attending
• Receiving

An illustrative speaker narrows "medicine" to "reading a prescription label" after learning that every listener is a first-year student in one nursing program. Which audience-analysis lens produced that finding?

Select one.

• The situational lens
• The demographic lens
• The psychographic lens

In an illustrative case, a chatbot gives a speaker a quotation credited to a professor, with a book title and a page. The speaker searches the library catalog and finds no such book anywhere, but reads the quotation aloud anyway. What has the speaker done?

Select one.

• Passed along possible fabrication, because the source may not exist
• Plagiarized, because the quotation came out of a chatbot
• Met the oral-citation standard, because a name, a title, and a page were given
• Offered expert testimony, because a professor is named

A draft reads "To inform my audience why the city should ban leaf blowers." Which tests of an informative specific purpose does it fail?

Select one.

• Only the first, since a specific purpose has to be phrased as a question
• None of them, since any draft that opens with To inform is informative
• The second and third, since should ban takes a side that a listener who disagrees would find unfair
• Only the third, since a listener who owns a leaf blower would find the whole talk far too long to sit through

An illustrative page about study habits has a polished layout, lists no author, shows no date, and ends every section with a link to buy a paid memory course. Which checklist question does the sales link bear on most directly?

Select one.

• Purpose
• Accuracy
• Relevance
• Currency

Across an illustrative talk on composting, the speaker says the core message near the start, rewords it when previewing the main ideas, and recasts it once more right before the clincher. Which strategy is the speaker using?

Select one.

• Signposting, a clarity strategy
• Novelty, a retention strategy
• Repetition with variation, a retention strategy
• Managing the information load, a clarity strategy

True or false: this course's list of persuasive appeals stops at ethos, pathos, and logos, with nothing added as a fourth.

True or false.

• True
• False

In an illustrative draft for a talk on a first-aid workshop, the outline reads "I. Hands-on first-aid training prepares students to help in an emergency. II. Practicing first aid with your hands gets students ready to step in when someone is hurt." Which error does the draft contain?

Select one.

• A signpost that names no relationship
• Two main points that overlap
• A missing transition between main points
• A subordinate point promoted to a main point

True or false: when an illustrative speaker is asked a question the talk never covered and does not know the answer, this course's toolkit says to offer a confident best guess rather than admit not knowing.

True or false.

• True
• False

An illustrative guide gives an informative talk on a new science building, moving floor by floor from the basement labs up to the rooftop greenhouse. Which organizational pattern fits best?

Select one.

• Spatial, because the listeners want to know where each part is
• Chronological, because the tour takes place over a span of time
• Causal, because each floor leads to the next one being built
• Topical, because a building holds many kinds of rooms

Before an illustrative impromptu answer, which opening buys a few seconds most credibly?

Select one.

• Saying "wow, great question" before every answer
• Apologizing for having had no time to prepare
• Repeating "um, like, so" until an idea arrives
• A brief pause, then a one-sentence restatement of the question

Before an illustrative club announcement, a speaker's hands shake and a few extra fillers creep into a practice run. Which response matches how this course treats speaking nerves?

Select one.

• Read every word from a script so that nobody can see the nerves
• Treat the shaking as common and manageable, rehearse aloud, and plan a pause
• Conclude that public speaking is not a good fit for this speaker
• Recite the announcement from memory so nothing unexpected can happen

An illustrative speaker turns toward the screen and reads each bullet aloud. According to the course, what is the main harm of this most common misuse of an aid?

Select one.

• Slides should never hold any words, so the bullets are the error
• The speaker stops watching the listeners and loses their feedback
• Listeners read more slowly than a speaker talks, so they fall behind
• Reading aloud makes the talk run too short for its time limit

An illustrative speaker answers "How has your hometown changed?" by stating the main claim first and then moving through how the town was, how it is now, and where it seems headed. Which backup frame is that, and which organizational pattern does it shrink?

Select one.

• Past–present–future, a chronological pattern in miniature
• Past–present–future, a spatial pattern in miniature
• Problem–solution, the problem–solution pattern in miniature
• PREP, a topical pattern in miniature

An illustrative chatbot drafts lines for a speech urging a campus to add late-night shuttle service. Which lines are manipulation moves? Select every one that applies.

Select every option that applies.

• Every student who walks home late is in danger every single night without it
• A later shuttle would cost money that the campus would need to find
• Picture a student finishing a late lab and riding home safely
• Sign up tonight, because after tonight the chance is gone forever
• Nearly every student demands it, according to a survey that cannot be found anywhere

An illustrative speaker revising a talk changes "an epileptic" to "a neighbor who has epilepsy." What is the best reason for the change?

Select one.

• It puts the person first and describes the person accurately
• A style rule bans the first phrase no matter what the speaker means
• Vivid language always takes more words than plain language
• The shorter phrase is always the clearer one for a listener

An illustrative youth soccer coach has 12 players gathered at the edge of a field, no screen, and a few minutes at halftime, so the coach sketches one play on a small whiteboard instead of using slides. Which audience-analysis lens drove that choice?

Select one.

• The demographic lens, since the players are all about the same age
• The psychographic lens, since the players care about winning the game
• The six-by-six guideline, since a quick sketch holds very few words
• The situational lens, since size, setting, and equipment limit which aid can work

An illustrative speaker on covered bike parking has a news-article citation that supports main point III. Where should that citation appear in the speaker's two outlines?

Select one.

• Written word for word on main point III's card so the speaker can read it exactly
• Only in a written bibliography at the end of the preparation outline
• Nowhere in either outline, since oral citations get added during rehearsal
• Written in full under point III on the page, and cued on point III's card

An illustrative speaker claims, "Our town library should extend its weekend hours for a one-semester trial." Which kind of persuasive question does this claim answer?

Select one.

• A question of fact, since library hours can be measured
• A question of value, since longer hours are a good thing
• A question of policy, since it asks what should be done
• An informative purpose, since it describes the library

An illustrative speaker has written both outlines for a talk on a first-aid workshop and is called up to speak. Which should go up to the front?

Select one.

• Both outlines, to switch to full sentences if nerves rise
• Neither, since an extemporaneous talk never uses notes of any kind
• The preparation outline, since full sentences keep a nervous speaker from going blank
• The speaking outline, so the speaker can glance down and then back up

Here are four lines from an illustrative informative talk on a community garden. Which line is the clincher?

Select one.

• So that wraps things up.
• Today you heard how the garden plots are assigned, watered, and harvested.
• Every plot that feeds a neighbor started as a patch of bare dirt someone decided to turn.
• Let me walk you through how plots are assigned, how watering works, and where the harvest goes.

An illustrative speaker revising a deck checks it against the course's slide design principles. Which of these are among those principles? Select all that apply.

Select every option that applies.

• Extra slides to show how hard the speaker worked
• Large readable type
• Full sentences so listeners can read along
• A consistent style
• Good images

The course ends its tour of communication models with Barnlund's transactional picture. In an illustrative job interview, which description fits that picture best?

Select one.

• The interviewer speaks, waits, and only then does the candidate get a turn to respond
• The candidate's message travels one way to a listener who sends nothing back
• Both people send and receive at once, as nods and words overlap
• It adds a seventh element, context, to the six the course names

An illustrative outline lists "I. Rooftop gardens grow food in the city. II. The rooftop beds sit in raised planters. III. Community plots share tools and water." A classmate's "because" test shows that point II supports point I. Which fix follows the outlining rules?

Select one.

• Move the planters under point I as its only subpoint, so point I gets its detail
• Drop point I, since point II is the more concrete of the two
• Keep all three as main points, since each one is already a full declarative sentence
• Move the planters under point I as subpoint A, add a B, and keep two main points

True or false: an informative speech takes no side, so an illustrative speaker explaining a town's new parking rules describes how they work rather than urging the audience to support them.

True or false.

• True
• False

At an illustrative club meeting, the chair turns to a member and says, "Tell us one thing you would change about our events." The member answers right away with no time to prepare. Which delivery method is that?

Select one.

• Extemporaneous delivery
• Manuscript delivery
• Impromptu delivery
• Memorized delivery

An illustrative speaker learns the talk will be outdoors in bright afternoon sun, with listeners standing well back from a portable screen. Which change to the aid follows from that situational finding?

Select one.

• Use large type and strong contrast so distant listeners can read it in the glare
• Add more lines of text so distant listeners have more to read
• Switch to a pie graph, since round shapes are easier to see far away
• Use light gray text on a white background so the slide looks clean

True or false: showing that one event came before another is not, on its own, enough to show that the first event caused the second.

True or false.

• True
• False

An illustrative speaker will explain a city's new bike-share program without taking a side. Which central idea fits that informative speech?

Select one.

• "Our city has to expand bike share before another summer goes by."
• "What would life be like if you never needed a car again?"
• "Bike share is the smartest possible way to fix downtown traffic."
• "The city's bike share lets riders unlock a bike with an app, ride between docks, and pay for the time they use."

An illustrative speaker keeps a map covered until the talk reaches it, points to it in one sentence, and then leaves it on screen for the rest of the talk. Which step of reveal, reference, return was skipped?

Select one.

• Reveal, since the map should have been showing from the opening
• Reference, since every place on the map should be read aloud
• Return, since the map should come down once its idea is done
• No step, since an aid should stay up for anyone who arrives late

At an illustrative retirement lunch, a coworker stands, shares one memory of the retiree's first week on the job, and closes by wishing the retiree well. What is the speech's general purpose?

Select one.

• To persuade, because it ends by asking the guests to join in a wish
• To mark an occasion, because the remarks honor the retiree
• To inform, because it gives the guests a story about the retiree

In an illustrative study group, one member holds the title of coordinator but says little, while other members keep the group on task, sum up decisions, and draw quieter members in. Which statement fits leadership as a function?

Select one.

• Only the member who holds the coordinator title led the group
• The members who moved the task and kept the group working together led it
• Nobody led, since the coordinator hardly said anything at all
• Drawing quiet members in is not leadership, since it does not move the task

When an illustrative debate club diagrams an argument, which Toulmin parts does this course treat as the core it keys?

Select one.

• Backing, qualifier, and rebuttal
• Claim, qualifier, and rebuttal
• Claim, evidence, and warrant
• Ethos, pathos, and logos