For each of the 8 quarters of 2008-2009, the graph shows a Japanese el

 
­chetan2u shouldn't the highlighted part be 1.17?

­@GMATCoachBen could you please explain?

­Thanks. It was a typo  

Hi,

I understood it as the opposite. I was dividing sales by the percent change in value of dollar.
Reason being if in 2008 Q1 if I was getting 100 yen at 100$ in 2009 Q4­ i will get 100 Yen at 117$.

Where did I go wrong?
 

 
­Should this be Q1? Q1 is 25million.­

­I have the same problem as I treat it like an inflation rate so I calculate in the opposite side which make them all wrong.

After I re-read it again thoroughly (which we don't usually have this much of time in the exam room), now I understand that Japanese company sell product and got dollar money which then convert to Japanese Yen higher (extra money from higher value of dollar).

I think the exam should show an example on change in the value of dollar so examinees can understand in the same way!­

­I took 30 mins

I think it will just require a lot of practice and getting used to tackling these seemingly complicated graphs. ­

Hi chetan2u, karishma

Please help with understanding how can we infer that the value of yen is increasing. The wordings seem very confusing

The higlighted part needs to be Q1. Please correct the error.


Kudos

Harsha

The context of the data is a bit complicated but the graph as well as the questions are fairly straightforward. Think of a Japanese company operating in US. They will earn revenue in $ but the value of $ value of yen changes. So to understand what they earned in terms of yen, they will need to convert their dollar revenue to yen.

Y axis (left side) gives quarterly sale in million dollars i.e. $22 million, $23 million etc - simple enough. Ignore million in our solution.
Y axis (right side) gives Change in value of $ relative to its value in 'Q1 2008' i.e. the first data point on X axis. So percent change in Q1 2008 will be 0 since that is the base. In Q2 2008, the value of dollar increases by 1%, in Q3 2008 it reduces by 2% (relative to the Q1 2008 value of dollar).

Let's say Q1 2008 dollar value = 100 yen. Then in Q2, value of dollar is 101 yen, in Q3 it is 98 yen etc.

"Q1 2008 yen-equivalent sales" for any quarter will then be (dollar sale for that quarter) * Value of dollar in yen.

Q1 2008 yen-equivalent sales were highest in _______ of 2009.

Compare Q1 and Q4 of 2009.
Q1 2009 = 25 * 112 = 2800 yen
Q4 2009 = 24 * 117 = 2808 yen

For other quarters, dollar sales and change in dollar value is less than these in Q4 so ignore.

Select Q4


Q1 2008 yen-equivalent sales for Q4 2009 were _______ Q1 2008 yen-equivalent sales for Q4 2008. ­

Compare Q4 2009 and Q4 of 2008. They both have the same dollar sales (bar heights are same) but dollar value increased more in 2009. So yen equivalent sales will be higher in Q4 2009.

Select greater than