ITPEC FE Morning April 2018 Question 77

Chart (a): bars in descending order with a cumulative line that rises ever more gently — the shape of a Pareto chart.

A Pareto chart sorts the causes from the most frequent to the least as bars and adds a line of the cumulative percentage. The line starts at the origin and reaches the top of the first bar, because after one cause the cumulative share is that cause's own share. Each later step adds a smaller bar, so the line keeps rising, never falls, and flattens towards 100% at the last cause. Chart (a) has exactly this: decreasing bars and a rising, flattening line.

Answer (a)

Why not others:

• •(b) — the bars descend, but the line falls; a cumulative total can only grow, so this is not a cumulative percentage line
• •(c) — the bars rise from left to right, so the top causes come last, and the line steepens instead of flattening
• •(d) — the bars peak in the middle like a histogram of a distribution, and the line falls after the peak, which a cumulative total cannot do

Key rule: In a Pareto chart the bars always descend and the cumulative line always rises, steep at first and flattening to 100%, so the few top causes stand out.

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