Skills in The Sims Social will unlock objects and are a great way to earn money in the game. Your earnings while performing skill tasks are directly tied to your Sim's needs; when your Sim is inspired, you will gain more money and have a better chance of having backpack items drop.
Skill Basics Explained
Every skill begins at level 0. A player earns skill levels by interacting with Skill objects.
Each Skill object will have a list of tasks to complete (i.e. documents/recipes/artwork/musical pieces/etc.) to build Skill points. These tasks typically require a minimum Skill level to access, and may also require backpack items to unlock. Every task requires multiple actions (i.e. spent energy) to complete. When a task is completed for the first time (or the intermediate level is reached) a Skill point is earned. The task can be done in the future for chances to earn more backpack items, but only one Skill point can be earned from completing each task. Therefore, once all tasks for a skill object have been completed, a new Skill instrument must be purchased in order to unlock new Skill levels.
In order to build Skills, it may be necessary to go back and forth between multiple skill items.
Doing Skill interactions with Skill objects will drop valuable backpack items. These items are most often used to unlock new skill levels, often for other types of skills than the one you are currently working on. They are also used in quests.
Types of Skills
Regular Skills
There are five basic skills that a Sim can develop:
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| Art | Athletic | Cooking | Music | Writing |
Limited Time Skills
Some skills are special and are linked to a limited-time object:
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to realswaggers from The Sims Social Forum, who assembled and posted the majority of this information (see: http://forum.playfish.com/showthread.php?t=2544539), as well as Game Guide Central's information (http://www.gameguidecentral.com/2011/08/sims-social-quests/).