Table Analysis Flashcards

A table of 10 investments shows annual returns from −5% to +18%. If sorted descending by return, how many investments must be examined before finding the first negative return?

Answer: It depends on the data.

Without knowing how many investments have positive returns, we cannot determine exactly where the first negative return appears in a descending sort.

A supplier table has columns: Supplier, Lead Time, Cost/Unit, Quality Score. A buyer wants the lowest cost among suppliers with Lead Time ≤ 5 days AND Quality Score ≥ 8. This requires filtering on how many columns?

Answer: 2

The buyer filters on Lead Time and Quality Score (2 columns), then minimizes Cost/Unit within those results.

A revenue table shows 12 months of data. The column 'MoM Growth %' is calculated as (This Month − Last Month) / Last Month. January cannot have a MoM Growth % value because:

Answer: There is no prior month in the dataset.

MoM growth for January requires December of the prior year, which is not in the 12-month dataset.

A table shows project data sorted by 'Priority' (High, Medium, Low). What type of sort is applied to the Priority column?

Answer: Custom categorical sort

High/Medium/Low follows a custom categorical order, not alphabetical or numeric ordering.

A table has 50 rows. A filter is applied: Region = 'West'. The result shows 15 rows. An analyst then sorts these 15 rows by revenue. How many total rows does the analyst see?

Answer: 15

Sorting does not add or remove rows; the 15 filtered rows remain, just reordered by revenue.

A profitability table shows Gross Margin and Operating Margin for 8 companies. Company X has the highest Gross Margin but ranks 5th in Operating Margin. What does this suggest?

Answer: Company X has high operating expenses relative to gross profit.

High gross margin but low operating margin indicates that operating expenses (SG&A, R&D, etc.) are consuming much of the gross profit.