TOEIC Reading Problem

Are Inadequate People Skills Keeping You From Realizing Your Goals?

The proof is all around us. Individuals with excellent interpersonal skills get ahead in their careers, in their organizations and in their lives!

It’s true in every career field and in every organization. Given similar skills and knowledge, the person with more highly developed people skills will always outpace the person with poor or mediocre interpersonal abilities. Are people born with these skills? Some people might be born with the tendency to develop them, but just like any other career skill, interpersonal skills can be learned, and they can be learned by anyone.

It’s true! In fact, many a top professional who appears to be a “born people person” – at ease, self-assured and in control of any social situation – has been the beneficiary of specialized training. There is no mystery to the way they handle people. The ability to build effective professional relationships, to strike up instant rapport, to communicate with tact, and to make a positive impression can be cultivated just like any other professional skill. But you have to take the first step.

For many, the first step on the path to better interpersonal skills has been to enroll in our two-day seminar entitled “Effective People Skills for Professionals”. This is an intensive workshop geared for professionals that provides you with a quick and effective way to gain the essential people skills you need to move ahead in your career. Using lectures, videos and practice scenarios, our experienced instructors will teach you how to:

Win support for your ideas
Use a concise method to get the support you need with a minimal investment in time and effort.

Establish instant rapport when meeting people
Connect with new people and establish a rapport that can serve as a foundation for long-lasting and mutually supportive professional relationships.

Defuse conflict, confrontation and disagreement
Turn conflict to your advantage by addressing others professionally, calmly and tactfully and disarming them by force of personality.

Make the commitment right now to attend this workshop and get the proven tools and techniques you need to make an immediate, dramatic improvement in the way you work with others. Don’t wait any longer to achieve the career success you deserve!

What does the advertisement imply about interpersonal skills and other professional skills and knowledge?
(A) If you have one, you don’t need the other.
(B) Thy are of equal importance to professional success.
© One is clearly more important than the other.
(D) They both contribute to professional success.

The answer given is (D), but I really can’t see where that implication comes from. I think © is more reasonable.

I agree with you. The advert clearly indicates that interpersonal skills are more important.

(Obviously being an advert they are out to persuade people that this is the case and that such skills are essential - persuasive writing is generally one-sided like this rather than based on a balanced argument.)