EA Table Analysis 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: 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?
- At most 9
- Exactly 1
- It depends on the data. (Correct answer)
- At least 1
Correct 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.
Question 2: 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?
- 1
- 2 (Correct answer)
- 3
- 4
Correct answer: 2
The buyer filters on Lead Time and Quality Score (2 columns), then minimizes Cost/Unit within those results.
Question 3: 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:
- January always has the lowest revenue.
- There is no prior month in the dataset. (Correct answer)
- January data is missing.
- Division by zero occurs.
Correct 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.
Question 4: A table shows project data sorted by 'Priority' (High, Medium, Low). What type of sort is applied to the Priority column?
- Numeric ascending
- Alphabetical descending
- Custom categorical sort (Correct answer)
- Alphabetical ascending
Correct answer: Custom categorical sort
High/Medium/Low follows a custom categorical order, not alphabetical or numeric ordering.
Question 5: 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?
- 50
- 15 (Correct answer)
- 65
- 35
Correct answer: 15
Sorting does not add or remove rows; the 15 filtered rows remain, just reordered by revenue.
Question 6: 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?
- Company X has very low revenue.
- Company X has high operating expenses relative to gross profit. (Correct answer)
- Company X's data is incorrect.
- Gross and operating margins are unrelated.
Correct 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.
EA Table Analysis 2
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?