ais chap 5/7

Understanding what big data means helps to know what types of questions can be fruitfully examined using data. Big data differs from regular data in four ways, often called the "four V's." Which of the following is not one of the four V's?

A. Veracity
B. Velocity
C. Validity
D. Variety

C. Validity

Asking the right questions is the first step of an analytics mindset. Which of the following is not part of the analytics mindset as defined by the accounting firm EY?

A. Exercise professional skepticism when using data
B. Apply appropriate data analytic techniques
C. Interpret and share the results with stakeholders
D. Extract, transform, and load relevant data

A. Exercise professional skepticism when using data

Good questions should be "SMART." Which of the SMART objectives suggests that a question should relate to the objectives of the organization or the situation under consideration?

A. Measurable
B. Specific
C. Achievable
D. Relevant

D. Relevant

What is the definition of a question that is measurable?

A. A question that should be able to be answered and the answer should cause a decision maker to act.
B. A question that is amenable to data analysis: the inputs are measurable with data.
C. A question that has a defined time horizon for answering.
D. A question that is direct and focused to produce a meaningful answer.

B. A question that is amenable to data analysis: the inputs are measurable with data.

Cindy, the controller at the organization, asks David, an accounts receivable clerk, "We want to be able to collect all cash from customers who make purchases. Which customers were more than 30 days late paying for their merchandise?" This question does the worst at accomplishing which of the following SMART objectives?

A. Timely
B. Relevant
C. Measurable
D. Specific

A. Timely

Check each example of structured data in the list below.

A. HTML website data saved on the company's website
B. Customer addresses saved in a customer relation database
C. Phone numbers of employees saved in a database
D. Photographs of all employees saved in the human resource database

B. Customer addresses saved in a customer relation database
C. Phone numbers of employees saved in a database

Chunhua has been building financial forecasting models for the company for several years. For each model, she saves all the data that could possibly be used in the model, even if she doesn't use all the data in her finished model. She does not document anything about the different items she has saved. When her intern, Minsuh pulls the data, she cannot understand what all the fields mean. How would Minsuh most accurately describe the data?

A. The data contains metadata
B. The data is not part of the data warehouse
C. The data has become a data swamp
D. The data is now dark data

C. The data has become a data swamp

A data owner sends you an e-mail with a file to prepare for analysis. The file contains data from multiple database tables all merged into a single file. There are multiple fields in the file each separated by a "~" symbol. For fields that contain large amounts of text, the file contains a "+" at the beginning and end of the text field. Indicate which of the following best describes (1) the type of file the data owner sent, (2), what the "+" is called, and (3) what the "~" is called.

A. Relational database file, text qualifier, delimiter
B. Relational database file, delimiter, text qualifier
C. Flat file, text qualifier, delimiter
D. Flat file, delimiter, text qualifier

C. Flat file, text qualifier, delimiter

Check each item listed below that is part of the process for transforming data.

A. Validate data quality and verify data meets data requirements
B. Standardize, structure, and clean the data
C. Understand the data and the desired outcome
D. Document the transformation process

A. Validate data quality and verify data meets data requirements
B. Standardize, structure, and clean the data
C. Understand the data and the desired outcome
D. Document the transformation process

What do the letters in the acronym ETL stand for?

A. Extract, Transcribe, and Launch
B. Enrich, Transform, and Load
C. Extract, Transform, and Load
D. Enrich, Transcribe, and Launch

C. Extract, Transform, and Load

An analytic that answers the question, "what might happen in the future?" is best described as which of the following?

A. Descriptive analytic
B. Diagnostic analytic
C. Predictive analytic
D. Prescriptive analytic

Amitola created a dashboard showing key metrics about the accounts payable process at her organization. The dashboard showed various metrics including: the total number of vendors, the amount saved by paying vendors on early, and the number of late payments to vendors. Which of the following best describes the type of analytics included in the dashboard?

A. Predictive analytics
B. Descriptive analytics
C. Prescriptive analytics
D. Diagnostic analytics

B. Descriptive analytics

An analytic that answers the question, "why did this happen?" is best described as which of the following?

A. Prescriptive analytic
B. Descriptive analytic
C. Diagnostic analytic
D. Predictive analytic

C. Diagnostic analytic

At a local supermarket, a data analyst used video data of the parking lots to identify the times when customer carts are most often left out in the parking lot. The analyst then designed the scheduling program to schedule more employee baggers to work during the time when shopping carts are left outside. The data analyst used what type of analytics in this scenario?

A. Prescriptive analytics
B. Predictive analytics
C. Diagnostic analytics
D. Descriptive analytics

A. Prescriptive analytics

According to EY, which of the following techniques should be developed to an "Awareness" level?

A. Forecasting, aggregation
B. Cluster analysis, inferential statistics
C. Querying, regression
D. Neural networks, artificial intelligence

D. Neural networks, artificial intelligence

Which of the following is the best example of correlation not being the same as causation?

A. After a poorly performing quarter, a company sends out coupons in the mail and sees an increase in sales. The company concludes that sending coupons causes sales to increase.
B. A company pays sales employees more for each sale and each employee starts selling more goods. The company concludes that paying employees more for a sale causes employees to sell more items.
C. During an economic downturn, a company changes its computer policy to only allow purchases of windows-based laptops and see profits go down. The company concludes that windows-based laptops cause profits to go down.
D. A company redesigns a production process and afterwards it takes less time to produce products. The company concludes that redesigning processes causes production efficiency gains.

C. During an economic downturn, a company changes its computer policy to only allow purchases of windows-based laptops and see profits go down. The company concludes that windows-based laptops cause profits to go down.

Before becoming the CEO, Kurt designed a new toy for the company. Although the sales of the new toy are the same as other toys in the company, the CEO gives employees in the new toy division a reward and bonus. The CEO is likely showing what?

A. A data analysis error
B. Correlation can be causation
C. A confirmation bias
D. A data sharing error

C. A confirmation bias

The process of translating complex data into easier to understand terms is called \________.

A. data visualization
B. data transformation
C. data storytelling
D. data dashboard

C. data storytelling

Check good visualization design principles among the four options given.

A. Choose the right type of visualization
B. Do not use data dashboards
C. Use text and not data visualizations
D. Simplify the presentation of data.

A. Choose the right type of visualization
D. Simplify the presentation of data.

Bernard prepares a data dashboard to send to the CFO. The CFO's objective for the dashboard is to see the "free cash" position of the company each morning in less than one minute. The dashboard fits on a single computer screen and contains 22 different charts. Which storytelling principles are supported by this dashboard?

A. Communicate quickly
B. None of these
C. Communicate effectively
D. Appropriate level of detail

B. None of these

Jane needs to create a data dashboard for each employee showing their performance during the last quarter. To build this dashboard, she must download data from a system, reformat it, upload it to a new system, and then build a visualization. To do this, Jane uses a program to automatically do all of these steps. What Jane built is an example of which of the following?

A. Data storytelling
B. Automation
C. Descriptive Analytic
D. Diagnostic Analytic

B. Automation

Check the likely benefits of using robotic process automation among the four options below.

A. RPA will make fewer mistakes for rules based tasks than a human.
B. RPA is better adapting to changing environments than a human.
C. RPA performs tasks faster than a human.
D. RPA can do more cognitively challenging tasks than a human.

A. RPA will make fewer mistakes for rules based tasks than a human.
C. RPA performs tasks faster than a human.

When accountants build bots to help them with the tasks of their job, what description best explains the type of bot they would build?

A. None of these
B. A computer program that is designed to perform a specific task
C. A machine that performs a task more quickly than a human
D. A robot that uses artificial intelligence to act like a human

B. A computer program that is designed to perform a specific task

Computer software that can be programmed to automatically perform tasks across applications just as human workers do is called \_______.

A. robotic process automation (RPA) software
B. big data software
C. ETL software
D. analytics software

A. robotic process automation (RPA) software

Check each option below that demonstrates when data analytics may not be the correct tool for making a decision.

A. When making an ethical decision
B. When decisions must be accurate
C. When something is very difficult to measure, such as emotions
D. When there is a long history of reliable data

A. When making an ethical decision
C. When something is very difficult to measure, such as emotions

Unstructured data internal or external to the organization is usually gathered and stored in which of the following?

A. data dictionary
B. data mart
C. data warehouse
D. data lake

Which of the following items would be the best primary key for a table containing information about customers?

A. customer email address
B. customer ID
C. customer full name
D. customer phone number

B. customer ID
- this is a unique field assigned by the company

Which of the following characters would be the best delimiter (the delimiter is listed between the quotes)?

A. ","
B. "@"
C. "|"
D. All of the above

C. "|"
- pipe characters are rarely used in writing and thus make for a good delimiter

An online sales company designed a program to evaluate customer purchases. After each purchase, the program analyzes which product the customer is most likely to buy next and e-mails the customer a coupon for a discount on this new product. What type of analytic is this an example of?

A. diagnostic analytics
B. descriptive analytics
C. prescriptive analytics
D. predictive analytics

C. prescriptive analytics
- this analytic predicts what happens and then does it

When sharing the results of an analysis, which of the following NOT a key principle to follow?

A. Simplify the presentation of the data
B. Ethically represent the data
C. Present the visualization in a timely manner
D. Emphasize what is important

C. Present the visualization in a timely manner
- while timeliness may be important in many settings, it is not a key component of how to share data analytic results

Which of the steps of an analytics mindset is the most difficult to automate?

A. interpret and share the results with stakeholders
B. ask the right questions
C. apply appropriate data analytics techniques
D. extract, transform, and load relevant data

B. ask the right questions
- this step involves using creativity, understanding context, and other attributes that are difficult to automate

All of the following characteristics of data are important in distinguishing big data from regular data EXCEPT:

A. Velocity
B. Variety
C. Visualization
D. Volume

C. Visualization
- visualizing data is important for sharing both big data and regular data

You are given an extract of one field from a database. The field has the value "11815 N. Diamond Dr." Which type of data is contained in this field?

A. Structured Data
B. Unstructured data
C. Semi-structed data
D. None of the above

A. Structured Data
- the data has defined structure that can be easily fit into a database field

Programming a computer program to automatically perform a task previously performed by a human is an example of which of the following?
A. Warehousing Data
B. The ETL process
C. Establishing SMART objectives
D. Robotic process automation

D. Robotic process automation
- the question contains the definition of RPA

Good questions for data adhere to all of the following principles EXCEPT:

A. timely
B. specific
C. accurate
D. measurable

C. accurate
- accuracy is a principle related to high-quality data but not good questions

Asking the right questions involves questions that are \____________.

A. motivated
B. measurable
C. mindful
D. macro (big picture) oriented

B. measurable

\____________ is a process of changing data into a format that another program can use.

A. Delimiting
B. Transforming
C. Visualizing
D. Cleaning

B. Transforming

A collection of structure, semi-structured, and unstructured data stored in a single location is called a \___________.

A. data lake
B. metadata
C. database
D. data warehouse

B. data lake

A delimiter is \_________.

A. a data element that allows large text sizes
B. a data element that separates field values
C. a data element used in the data dictionary
D. a data element that identifies numeric values

B. a data element that separates field values

Using Robotic Process Automation is best for tasks that are \________________.

A. changing
B. repetitive
C. complex
D. interesting

B. repetitive

Following the creation of an ETL process, the following action should be performed.

A. Transform the data
B. Remove commas
C. Create structured data
D. Update the data dictionary

D. Update the data dictionary

To answer the question of "What should be done," one would apply \____________________.

A. prescriptive analytics
B. predictive analytics
C. descriptive analytics
D. diagnostic analytics

A. prescriptive analytics

According to the EY Foundation, over which data analytic techniques should accountants gain mastery?

A. Querying, trends, forecasting
B. Cluster analysis, inferential statistics
C. Correlation, regression
D. Data mining, artificial intelligence

A. Querying, trends, forecasting

The process of translating complex data analyses into easier to understand terms is \______________________.

A. data storytelling
B. data visualization
C. data dashboard
D. statistical analysis

A. data storytelling

If analytics are performed well, it is certain that \____________________________.

A. None of these are necessarily certain.
B. high-quality judgments will follow.
C. efficiency will be gained.
D. fraud will be reduced.

A. None of these are necessarily certain.

Big Data

data sets characterized by huge amounts (volume) of frequently updated data (velocity) in various formats (variety) for which the quality may be suspect (veracity)

Data Volume

the amount of data created and stored by an organization

Data Velocity

the pace at which data is created and stored

Analytics Mindset

a way of thinking that centers on the correct use of data and analysis for decision making

ETL Process

A set of procedures for blending data. The acronym stands for extract, transform, and load data

Structured Data

data that is highly organized and fits into fixed fields

Unstructured Data

data that has no uniform structure

Semi-Structured Data

organized in some ways but is not fully organized to be inserted into a relational database

Flat File

a text file that contains data from multiple tables or sources and merges that data into a single row

Delimiter

a character, or series of characters, that marks the end of one field and the beginning of the next field.

Text Qualifier

two characters that indicate the beginning and ending of a field and tell the program to ignore any delimiters contained between the characters

Descriptive Analytics

information that results from the examination of data to understand the past - "what is happening?- computation of accounting ratios

Diagnostic Analytics

build on descriptive analytics and try to answer the question "why did this happen?" - determine casual relationship

Predictive Analytics

information that results from analyses that focus on predicting the future - "what might happen in the future?"- forecasting future events

Prescriptive Analytics

information that provide a recommendation of what SHOULD happen - "what should be done?"- creation of algorithms that predict whether an indiv will pay their loan

Data Storytelling

the process of translating often complex data analyses into more easy to understand terms to enable better decision making

Data Visualization

use of a graphical representation of data to convey meaning

Data Dashboard

A set of visual displays that organizes and presents information that is used to monitor the performance of a company or organization in a manner that is easy to read, understand, and interpret.

Indicate which option orders the type of analytic from the one that provides the most value added to an organization to the least value added to the organization.

A. Predictive, prescriptive, descriptive, diagnostic
B. Prescriptive, predictive, diagnostic, descriptive
C. Predictive, prescriptive, diagnostic, descriptive
D. Prescriptive, predictive, descriptive, diagnostic

B. Prescriptive, predictive, diagnostic, descriptive

When confirmatory data analysis techniques are used, what type of analytic is likely being computed?

A. Descriptive analytic
B. Prescriptive analytic
C. Predictive analytic
D. Diagnostic analytic

D. Diagnostic analytic

Making sure to use separate training datasets and test datasets is especially important for creating what type of analytic?

A. Diagnostic analytic
B. Predictive analytic
C. Prescriptive analytic
D. Descriptive analytic

B. Predictive analytic

\________ often make use of exploratory data analytic techniques, while \_______ make use of machine learning techniques.

A. Diagnostic analytics, predictive analytics
B. Descriptive analytic, prescriptive analytics
C. Descriptive analytics, predictive analytics
D. Diagnostic analytics, prescriptive analytics

C. Descriptive analytics, predictive analytics

A pharmaceutical company is trying to develop a drug that will help cure the most people with a serious disease. To choose the drug that can cure the most people, the data analyst should look at what?

A. Effect size
B. Type II error rate
C. P-value (level of statistical significance)
D. Type I error rate

A. Effect size

Pie charts are the most over-used type of charts. This is because they are often used to show comparison. Select which chart type is best for making comparisons.

A. Line chart
B. Histogram
C. Scatterplot
D. Bar chart

D. Bar chart

Chibuzo creates a chart to show the percentage of activities in the accounting function have been automated over time. She wants to stress the slow rate of change by the department to adopt automation. What is the purpose of Chibuzo's visualization and what type of chart would be best for this purpose?

A. Trend evaluation, line chart
B. Comparison, line chart
C. Correlation, scatterplot
D. Comparison, bar chart

A. Trend evaluation, line chart

Check all techniques that can be used to simplify a visualization.

A. Orientation
B. Quantity
C. Put information on multiple vizs
D. Distance

A. Orientation
B. Quantity
C. Put information on multiple vizs
D. Distance

Check all techniques that can be used to emphasize in a visualization.

A. Weighting
B. Highlighting
C. Color
D. Orientation

A. Weighting
B. Highlighting
C. Color
D. Orientation

Which of the following is not a principle to avoid in trying to create ethical data presentations?

A. All of these are important principles to follow for creating ethical data presentations
B. In vizs designed to depict trends, show time progressing from left to right on the x-axis
C. Present complete data given the context
D. Show representations of numbers proportional to the reported number

A. All of these are important principles to follow for creating ethical data presentations

A company wants to determine how to decrease employee turnover. In order to do this, they test whether paying off an employee's student debt will cause fewer employees to leave. The analytic testing whether paying off an employee's student debt causes lower turnover is an example of which type of analytic?

A. Descriptive
B. Prescriptive
C. Diagnostic
D. Predictive

C. Diagnostic
- The analytic is explaining why there is a relationship between two variables

You co-own a theme park. You believe that the longer customers stay in the park, the hungrier they will be which would increase the amount they spend on food. Your co-owner believes that the longer customers stay in the park, the more likely they are to feel nauseated which would decrease the amount they spend on food. Both of you gather data and find some evidence supporting your belief. If the true relation is that there is no relation between time in the park and food sales, what type of error did your co-owner make?

A. GIGO error
B. type II error
C. type I error
D. data overfitting error

C. type I error
Both you and your co-owner incorrectly rejected the null hypothesis in favor of an alternative hypothesis

A data analyst develops a classification model to predict whether a customer will be unsatisfied, neither satisfied nor unsatisfied, or satisfied with their online purchasing experience. The data item of customer satisfaction is an example of what type of data?

A. training data
B. model testing data
C. categorical data
D. none of the above

C. categorical data
- the customer satisfaction data item can only be one of the three values

A company uses a boxplot in a visualization. What is likely the purpose of the visualization?

A. part to whole
B. comparison
C. distribution
D. correlation

C. distribution

Which chart type is best for depicting trends over time?

A. histogram
B. area chart
C. bar chart
D. pie chart

B. area chart
- An area chart shows trends and is particularly useful to emphasize trends over time

Which of the following is NOT a good reason to visualize data?

A. Visualizations help the majority of people to learn better.
B. Visualized data is processed faster than written information.
C. Users can find information more quickly with visualized data.
D. Building visualizations does not take as much time as writing a report.

D. Building visualizations does not take as much time as writing a report.
- while this may be true in some cases, building a good visualization may take more time than writing a report in other cases

Which of the following is a technique to simplify data presentation?

A. highlighting
B. ordering
C. weighting
D. distance

D. distance
- reducing distance between visual element and description simplifies a presentation.

A general rule of thumb is that a visualization should only have 3-5 groups in the data area. Putting in more or less than this amount violates which principle?

A. color contrast principle
B. emphasis principle
C. Goldilocks principle
D. ethical data presentation principle

C. Goldilocks principle
- the goldilocks principles says that a viz should not contain too much or too little data

Making an item in the data area of a viz larger to increase emphasis is an example of using which principle?

A. It's a poor design choice; items should all be the same size.
B. ordering
C. highlighting
D. weighting

D. weighting
- size is an important way to increase visual heaviness, which emphasizes the item

Which of the following can be used to present data unethically?

A. selectively presenting only part of a viz
B. with an axis, showing the most recent time closest to the origin
C. truncating or stretching the axes
D. All the above

D. All of the above

An analysis of the current profitability of a product line such as Cost-Volume-Profit (CVP) analysis is an example of \____________ analytics.

A. predictive
B. diagnostic
C. prescriptive
D. descriptive

D. descriptive

Comparing means and medians is an example of \__________________ analytics.

A. prescriptive
B. predictive
C. diagnostic
D. descriptive

D. descriptive

Testing a hypothesis is an example of \___________ analytics.

A. descriptive
B. prescriptive
C. diagnostic
D. predictive

C. diagnostic

A company has collected performance data (machine movements, units produced, quality measures) from a production machine for several months. Each day the company has increased speed by 0.05 percent. The company plans on building a model to estimate the machine's quality measures assuming an additional 2% increase in machine speed. Which type of analytic will be performed?

A. Descriptive
B. Diagnostic
C. Predictive
D. Prescriptive

C. Predictive

You overhear the CFO and the treasurer talking about a cash flow training dataset. You are confident that they are talking about performing which type of analytic?

A. Descriptive
B. Predictive
C. Prescriptive
D. Diagnostic

B. Predictive

You are tasked with presenting a viz that compares sales for four different products. Which viz is likely most appropriate?

A. Pie hart
B. Bar chart
C. Area chart
D. Histogram

B. Bar chart

Suppose your salespersons are given great latitude is setting product prices to their customers. You are tasked with showing how much each salesperson varies in prices for one particular product. Which viz is most appropriate?

A. Boxplot
B. Area chart
C. Bar chart
D. Heatmap

A. Boxplot

You are tasked with representing how much of total product sales is represented by each of four product lines. Which viz is most appropriate?

A. Area chart
B. Treemap
C. Bullet chart
D. Bar chart

B. Treemap

Supposing you are presenting a line chart with values ranking from .01 to 79.3 on the y-axis. How many decimal places should be shown in the labels of the tick marks on the y-axis?

A. Zero
B. 1
C. 2
D. 3

A. Zero

When discussing the amount of attention an element attracts, you are discussing \_______________.

A. visual weight
B. ordering
C. distance
D. highlighting

A. visual weight

Descriptive Analytics

Information that results from the examination of data to understand the past, answer the question "what happened?"

Diagnostic Analytics

Information that attempt to determine causal relationships, answer the question "why did this happen?"

Predictive Analytics

Information that results from analyses that focus on predicting the future, answers the question, "what might happen in the future?"

Prescriptive Analytics

Information that results from analyses to provide a recommendation of what should happen, answers the question "what should be done?"

Mean

average

Median

the middle score in a distribution; half the scores are above it and half are below it

Mode

the most frequently occurring score(s) in a distribution