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CMA Intermediate · Financial Management and Business Data Analytics · Data Presentation: Visualisation and Graphical Presentation

A Mumbai-based retailer wants to show how its monthly sales revenue moved over the 12 months of a financial year so that management can spot the trend and seasonal peaks. Which chart is most suitable?

A line graph with months on the horizontal axis is most suitable, because it connects values in time order and makes trend and seasonal peaks easy to see. A pie chart shows only parts of a whole at one moment.

  1. ALine graph with months on the horizontal axisCorrect
  2. BPie chart with one slice for each month
  3. CScatter plot of sales against region
  4. DStacked bar chart of product categories without a time axis

Explanation

A line graph joins points plotted in time order, so it shows direction, trend and seasonality clearly. A pie chart shows share of a whole at one point in time, not movement over time, so it is wrong for a 12-month trend.

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