The Sims 2 Basic Skills

The Sims 2 - Basic Skills

Body - Increase in the body skill helps with advancement in careers. Body skill increases a Sim's chances of winning a fight, animations change as body skill increases.

Charisma - Increase in Charisma helps with advancement in careers. Charisma skill increases the chance of positive results due to social interactions, such as joke telling and reduces the chance of being rejected.

Cleaning - Increase in Cleaning helps with advancement in careers. A higher cleaning skill speeds up the cleaning of messes in daily life.

Cooking - Increase in Cooking helps with advancement in careers. A higher cooking skill means the Sim can cook dishes that have a higher satisfaction, and decreases the chance of burning the food, or even starting a fire. 

Creativity - Increase in Creativity helps with advancement in careers. 
A higher Creativity skill will make the playing of musical instruments sound better. The higher the creativity skill the better your paintings and novels will sell for.

Logic - Increase in Logic helps with advancement in careers. Logic 
helps in a higher chance of winning when playing games like chess.

Mechanical - Increase in Mechanical helps with advancement in careers. Mechanical skill is mainly useful for repairing things and building hobby items like on the Robotics station.