Edwin, a Sales Manager, Just Finished Reading Some Sales Statistics

question 173

Multiple Choice

Edwin, a sales manager, just finished reading some sales statistics comparing his company's performance to that of competitors. The statistics summarize a mass of raw figures into a few meaningful measures that Edwin will use to determine whether he needs to change his sales strategy. The statistics in the printout are

• A) information, while the raw figures used to compute the statistics are data.
• B) data, while the raw figures used to compute the statistics are information.
• C) less useful to Edwin than the raw figures would have been, since summarizing the figures necessarily reduces their accuracy.
• D) an example of how managers have a tendency to oversimplify by reducing complex issues into a few simple numbers.

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Definitions:

Sequential Order

The arrangement of objects, actions, or events in a specific, logical sequence, one following another.

Superego

In psychoanalytic theory, the part of the psyche that operates as a moral conscience.

Castration Anxiety

A concept in psychoanalytic theory describing a child's fear of bodily loss or damage, particularly the fear of losing the genitals, related to feelings of parental authority and sexual identity.

Oedipus Complex

A Freudian theory proposing a child's unconscious sexual desire for the opposite-sex parent and jealousy towards the same-sex parent.