Cherry International Company is a leading business firm dealing in var

Question

EDITED VERSION OF THIS QUESTION IS HERE: https://gmatclub.com/forum/the-chart-sh ... 45396.html

Data Insights (DI) Butler 2024 [ Date: 16-Feb-2023]

Cherry International Company is a leading business firm dealing in various products. The graph above shows the change in the strength of employees, sales and cost incurred by the company over a period of 5 years.

Profit of the company is the difference in sales and cost, that is Profit = Sales-Cost.

The values of cost and sales in Billion dollars and the number of employees in thousands. So, 20 thousand employees were working in the year 2012, while the sales of the company and the cost incurred by the company were $ 108 billion and $ 105 billion respectively.

From each drop down menu, select the option that creates the most accurate statement based on the graph and information above.

The profit per employee is the highest in , while the maximum percentage change in the cost has been in

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Official Answer

Dropdown 1: 2011

Dropdown 2: 2010

ckavya2691 · Answer

Where is the graph?

Hoehenheim · Answer

In Dropdown 2, the answer given is 2011.
On further analysis of the given graph in the question, the unit increase is about 18,   accounting for 90% increase in 2010.
the unit increase is 32,   accounting for a 84% increase in 2011.
So, shouldn't the answer be 2010 for dropdown 2?

chetan2u · Answer

Actually the value in the graph is 17, and that makes the answer what it is right now, as (33)/37 > 17/20. So, the question and answer is correct.

But, I would agree 17 and 18 is a very close call, and I'll change the question.

Hoehenheim · Answer

Thanks for clearing that up!

gjijon · Answer

Can someone help me understand the first drop down?

chetan2u · Answer

Solution:

The graph has three lines depicting number of employees and sales & cost. Further Profit = Sales - Cost

First Blank : We have to give the year tha had maximum profit per employee. 
=>  \frac{Profit}{employee}=\frac{Sales-Cost}{employee}  
We don't require to calculate the value for each but scanning the graph should help us.

As normal in the official questions, a seemingly easy question too has some trap/trick.

So, we look for the larger value of Sales- cost, which is nothing but the gap between orange line and blue line,  and smaller value for employees.
Scanning the graph, the lgaps are the biggest in year 2008, 2009 and 2011.
Now, 2008 is a trap because it is opposite of what we are seeking. The gap gives  Cost - Sales , which is  loss .
Let us see 2009 and 2011 now. The gap is almost same but the number of employees are much lesser in 2011.
So, the value of   \frac{Profit}{employee}=\frac{Sales-Cost}{employee}  will be largest for year   2011  .

Second Blank : We have to give the year that had maximum percntage change in cost. 
 What one has to be careful on is the difference in maximum change vs maximum % change. 
Although maximum change in cost is the drop of almost 112-8 or $104 billion, but drop will never be more than 100% here.
On the other hand, the increase in 2010 is 30 - 8 or $22 billion, a % increase of almost 300%. => 100*22/8
=>  100*\frac{22}{8}=275  %. 
Answer:   2010

gjijon

Sandesh013 · Answer

Hi chetan2u, shouldn't the answer for the second dropdown be 2009 because from 2008 to 2009 it is almost more than 100 billion dip ?

chetan2u · Answer

Hi

The thing is that we are looking at maximum % change and 100 dip is numeric. In terms of % it will be 100/110 or so, which will be surely be less than 100%. A decrease of 100% would mean that a value becomes 0.

But when you look at the next year, the change is almost 22 over 8, that is 22/8, which is almost 250%. Thus, our answer

Gemmie · Answer

The profit per employee is the highest in [2011],

Should be

when difference between sales and cost is large
number of employee is low

2008: 20/50 = 0.4
2009: 10/40 = 0.25 (< 2008)
2010: 10/30 = 0.33 (< 2008)
2011: 11/25 = 22/50 > 2008
2012: 5/20 = 0.25 (<2008)

==> 2011

while the maximum percentage change in the cost has been in [2010]

% decrease can never be greater than 100%

2009 to 2010: 10 to 30 => x3
2010 to 2011: 30 to 60 => x2
2011 to 2012: 60 to 105 => less than x2

==> 2010

Bunuel · Answer

EDITED VERSION OF THIS QUESTION IS HERE: https://gmatclub.com/forum/the-chart-sh ... 45396.html

Cherry International Company is a leading business firm dealing in var

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