McGraw-Hill Education GRE 2019

For this question, indicate all of the answer choices that apply.

2. For which of the following years was the revenue from computers greater
   than in the previous year?
   A 2004
   B 2005
   C 2006
   D 2008
   E 2010

For this question, write your answer in the box.

3. During the period from 2006–2008, what was the average annual revenue
   from phones? Round your answer to the nearest $100,000.

The first step to understanding the data is to note the title of the given graph.

The first graph provides you with the annual revenue for a company from 2003–

2010. Notice that the title tells you that the data is in millions of dollars. Thus the
      numbers on the y-axis represent millions of each labeled quantity.
      The second graph provides you with the breakdown of the company’s annual
      revenue by product sales. Make sure to understand the legend and to understand
      how to read each bar. For example, you should note that even though the top bar of
      the Computers component of 2003 ends at ≈45, computers did not account for 45%
      of that year’s revenue since the bottom bar ends at ≈22. Thus computers accounted
      for ≈(45 – 22) = ≈23% of that year’s revenue.

How to Answer Data Interpretation Questions

When answering Data Interpretation questions, you will want to keep a few

principles in mind.

■ Principle 1: When possible, you should estimate. Many of the questions

you see in Data Interpretation will use words such as approximately or closest

to. When you see these words, the test-makers are essentially telling you that

you are not expected to arrive at a precise value. Instead, make sure that you

stay roughly within the range of the given information, and the answer you

arrive at will almost always be near only one of the choices. This strategy is

particularly helpful in situations with bar graphs, where it might not be quite

clear whether, for example, the review in 2003 is $38 million or $39 million.

The short answer is that it does not matter. Stay within reasonable estimates,

and the correct choice will still be obvious.

CHAPTER 14 ■ DATA INTERPRETATION 451

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