The table includes various data about libraries in the Netherlands

Dear mbaaspirant80,

I'm happy to respond.

My friend, I don't know the source of these questions, but they don't look official. These questions have a few problems.

In addition to the table, we are given this text:
The table includes various data about libraries in the Netherlands during the period between 2001 and 2005, inclusive. Volumes include books, audiovisual (AV) material, and other materials. "In collection" numbers are averages (arithmetic means) for the year, whereas "Lent out to public" numbers are totals for the year. All numbers except for the number of libraries are in the thousands.

1) The year with the fewest "turns" (average number of times an item is lent out to the public) of AV materials was 2004.
We have no idea. It sounds as if counting "turns" is something keyed to each specific AV item, and we would be taking an average over all items. The table simply gives us a total number: it doesn't indicate whether some items were repeats or not. The table seems to offer no information on this. We would have to select No.

2) The listed characteristic of Netherlands' libraries that experienced the greatest percent declines from 2001 to 2005 was volumes in collection.
Certainly volumes in collection experiences a significant drop, almost 43M to 37M. That drop was 42,760,000 to 37,464,000, a drop of 12.3%. It turns out that AV materials lent out to the public dropped from 7,205,000 to 6,059,000, a drop of 15.9%. We didn't have to consider it, because we got a "no" answer, but would number of libraries overall count as a "listed characteristic"? I think that's not a particularly precise term. Regardless, we get a "No" answer.

3) The number of books in Netherlands' libraries collection per registered user rose from 2002 to 2003.
Finally, an unambiguous calculation, although this is really a pain-in-the-tush calculation, particularly with the tiny on-screen calculator. I will ignore the thousands in the ratios, because all the extra zeros cancel.
In 2002, we had (36,671 books)/(4290 users) = 8.548 books/ user
In 2003, we had (35,371 books)/(4206 users) = 8.410 books/ user
This certainly didn't increase. This is a clear unambiguous "No" answer.

At least these answers tally with the OA provided.

It strikes me as odd that the fact that all numbers were in thousands except the number of libraries didn't come into play at all. The ambiguity of the wording in Q#2 makes me wonder whether there was more ambiguity in Q#1.

Does all this make sense?
Mike
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Dear Mike,
thanks for the close observation.
These questions are from one of GMAT prep company .
I have already posted the whole pdf containing 71 IR question in this forum.
you can find the link in my signature.
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