Analytics-DA-201 - Explore and Analyze Data (41% of the exam) - Section 2.3
Build and customise table calculations - moving and window averages, percent of total, running total, difference and percent difference, percentile, index, and ranking.
Practice question for this objective
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How does a Percent of Total table calculation differ from a Running Total table calculation when both are computed across the same dimension?
APercent of Total accumulates each value onto the previous ones, while Running Total expresses each value as a share of the partition's sum.
BPercent of Total divides each mark by the total of all marks in the partition, while Running Total adds each mark to the cumulative sum of the marks before it.check_circle Correct
CBoth produce the same final value in the last cell, because the cumulative sum and the share both reach one hundred percent at the end.
DPercent of Total can only be computed down a pane, whereas Running Total can only be computed across a table.
Running Total accumulates values as it moves across, whereas Percent of Total divides each value by the partition's overall sum. Running Total keeps a cumulative sum that grows along the addressing direction, while Percent of Total leaves each value in place but rescales it as a fraction of the total across the same partition, so their outputs and meanings diverge.
Why A is wrong: This reverses the two definitions; accumulation is what Running Total does and the share-of-sum behaviour belongs to Percent of Total, so the labels are swapped.
Why B is correct: This states both mechanisms correctly: Percent of Total normalises each value against the partition total, and Running Total carries a cumulative sum as it moves across the addressing direction.
Why C is wrong: The last Running Total cell equals the partition's full sum as a raw figure, not a percentage; only Percent of Total reaches one hundred percent, so the values differ.
Why D is wrong: Both calculations let you choose any addressing direction through Compute Using; neither is locked to a single direction, so this restriction is invented.
Answers that look right on this material and are not. Each one is a distractor from a different question in the Analytics-DA-201 bank for this domain.
20 percent, because the difference of 40 is divided by the later value of 200
errorWhy it is wrong: Dividing the 40 difference by the current value of 200 gives 20 percent, which is a common slip, but Percent Difference From always divides by the value being compared against, the previous one, not the current one.
The cumulative sum of sales down each quarter column, accumulating from the top region to the current region.
errorWhy it is wrong: This describes Table (down), which would accumulate across regions within a quarter; the question specifies Table (across), so the direction is wrong.
Percent of Total, computed down the customer rows, so each customer's sales are expressed as a share of all customers' sales combined
errorWhy it is wrong: Percent of Total divides each value by the grand total, so a customer's figure reflects their slice of overall sales, not their position in the distribution; the largest slice will rarely be near 100 percent, so it answers a different question.